


The Manipulator's Fate

by lesbianbookworm



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (kinda...) - Freeform, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Season/Series 11, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Child Murder, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dream Sex, Drug-Induced Sex, Drugging, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Forced Orgasm, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt!Sam, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Manipulative Relationship, Minor Character Death, Murder, POV Nick, Rape/Non-con Elements, SPN Dark Fic Big Bang 2019, Sam Winchester Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sam Winchester in Lucifer's Cage, Sexual Assault, Victim Blaming, Violence, cas and amara are also only mentioned but they still play an important part in the story so, i took season 11 and i threw Nick in there and then added the dark stuffTM, is referenced, nick/sarah & dean/amara is actually relatively minor, short hypothetical mention of animal death & car accident, short mention of possible self injury (Sam) & suicide attempt (OC), theres also trigger warnings in front of each chapter!, this is all written in the pov of a dark messed up character so theres that, with short i mean one sentence for each
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 16:51:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 47,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20549495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianbookworm/pseuds/lesbianbookworm
Summary: Nick didn’t die when Lucifer left him behind in the abandoned warehouse. But he spent over five years wishing he had, because Lucifer left an emptiness behind that he would do anything to fill. He has pretty much resigned himself to a life with this constant itch under his skin, a normal and boring life, when the unthinkable happens: Lucifer returns and offers him a second chance. Nick’s duty leads him to the bunker and to his old friends, the Winchesters. And Nick is willing to do just about anything to make Sam Say Yes to (be) the Dress.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction was written for the SPN Dark Fic Bang 2019. Thank you very much go all the other writers in the channel for all the sprinting we did so this story could actually come into existence as well as for the amazing environment created in the discord. A real big thank you to the Mods for organizing this and for making this a really great experience.  
And of course the biggest thank you to ncdover1285 for the art and for pinch-hitting for my story. [Here's the artpost.](https://ncdover.tumblr.com/post/187552741234/banner-for-the-manipulators-fate-by) Happy reading!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: murder, ritualistic murder, infant murder, violence, slight sexual content

Nick is sleeping, when he feels it. His return. Sitting upright, Nick waits for the feeling to disappear, for the cold to drain from his bones like it sometimes does when he wakes up from one of the wonderful dreams where He is still with him, still in him, but it stays, wrapped around him deliciously and after a tenuous few seconds Nick feels a grin creep onto his lips.  
He doesn’t know where Lucifer is, but He is back, walking the Earth, Nick knows it. He has been His vessel for long enough, has been carved empty by the steady battering ram of Grace inside him, to feel the way the vibrations in the air have changed, how he can nearly taste power that hasn’t been there when he had gone to bed. As if in a trance, Nick gets up and quickly dresses, hands shaking as he buttons his shirt and pants. It’s finally time. He always hoped for this, but still he can barely believe that it’s actually happening. He doesn’t get further than into his living room, where black eyes are fixed on him as he leaves his bedroom. The demon bids him to wait, bide his time, promises that he will get his chance and Nick deflates, but he does as he is asked. Not knowing how long he’ll have to wait, he keeps going to work - and when his co-workers comment on the new spring in his step, he just says he got into contact with an old friend again - until finally the same demon is laying on his bed when he wakes up in the middle of the night, smiling as Nick glares at it, while it stretches slowly, bones popping, then a big grin, stolen skin stretching as it lets its tongue dart out to swipe a speck of blood of its lips, and then finally sit up, leaning forward until their lips brush Nick’s ear and then it leans back again. Nick wants to strangle it and it seem to enjoy knowing this, exposes its throat for one last long moment, before it finally speaks. “Now it’s your time.”  
He packs his bags and leaves the small rented apartment that has been his home for the past year. He won’t be coming back, so he takes what little he cares about and walks towards his car with a spring in his steps. He also leaves twice the rent with a note canceling his lease behind on the kitchen table. He knows it’s not gonna be enough to completely satisfy his Landlord, but it might deter him from calling the police. He’ll send a resignation e-mail to his job later in the day. Without any friends or family to report him missing, it’s unlikely that anybody will look for him. He whistles softly as he finds and collects the packages from surrounding towns that he’s been keeping tabs off, just in case he needed them, and now it’s finally time they fulfill their purpose. Stuffing them into his trunk and onto the backseat of his car, covering them with a blanket so noisy bystanders won’t accidentally catch a glimpse, he takes off again. As he’s driving his normal 5:00 alarm goes off and nature sounds fill the car. Nick grins at that, the muffled sobs coming from the backseat mixing with the air rustling through leaves and birds singing. He never knew his alarm could sound so beautiful, and while it’s still not as beautiful as Lucifer’s grace calling for him… it’s surprisingly close. Or maybe that’s just the general atmosphere and excitement.  
By the time he arrives at the warehouse, some of his packages have started stirring again, but Nick made sure the ropes were strong and bound tight. They could potentially lose a limb or two if he left them like this for too long, but Nick is pretty sure none of them will be alive by the time it could be a problem. He pops the trunk of his Subaru, already knowing that this is probably one of the last longer trips he undertakes in it. It feels a bit like a final goodbye. His wife had insisted on the car, saying that it would allow them to transport their children and their friends or go on camping trips, which had never happened after the incident. Nick smiles softly as he cards his fingers through one of the bundle’s hair. Maybe she’d be at least a little bit proud seeing how the space of the car is finally utilized.  
He heaves the first package out of the car and starts dragging it across the lot towards the door. The woman in his arms has shoulder length brown hair and Nick feels an excited tingle run through him at the thought of slicing into her as he had done his wife so long ago, defiling his body so it would be able to hold Lucifer in all His glory. He tosses her to the ground hard, knowing that she won’t be able to catch herself and he grins as he hears her grunt in pain. After a while, he has dragged all of his six victims into the circle and he bends down to pick up the very special bundle he took from its crib. The woman’s eyes widen in shock as he holds up her baby, making sure she can see its scared face as it wails into the gag. She screams as well and fights against the rope hard enough that her skin must be cracking under it. Since it’s not her blood he needs, he lets her try for a bit, tickling the knife over its belly and cheek, watching the panic in her eyes grow each time he shifts the knife. When he finally slices the infant’s throat, draining it into a goblet, she convulses and her wails are loud enough that they even penetrate through the gag. After her baby goes limp, he tosses the carcass to her and when its dead lifeless flesh touches her body, all fight drains out of her and she slumps down. Maybe unconscious or too exhausted to continue. Pathetic.  
His hands shake slightly from excitement as he begins to paint the pentagram, making sure to draw the lines as straight as the wiggling, crying bodies of his victims allow. The elderly woman is sobbing as is the business man he dragged in here, except instead of the suit Nick always saw him in, he’s now wearing navy blue pajamas, which ignoring the ropes, the crying and the surroundings, make him look like a dad, that just stumbled out of the advertisement of a happy family during breakfast into the cold, hard reality. A teenage boy is growing pale behind his gag and by the way he is convulsing and straining, Nick can tell that he must have thrown up and is now starting to suffocate on it. Nick growls. Talk about premature. Carefully placing the goblet far enough away so that none of them can get any stupid ideas like trying to kick it over, he removes the gag and turns the boy onto his stomach, letting him cough and wheeze until his breathing has normalized again.  
“Please”, the boy whispers. “Please-” His pathetic pleas are cut off when Nick shoves the gag back into his mouth and smashes the boy’s head into the vomit-covered concrete.  
“Be quiet”, he snarls and lets go of the boy’s long brown locks. For a moment he wants to slice him apart, but he has a job to do, so he controls himself. Then he continues his art. Thankfully none of his victims seem to be sympathetic pukers and he doesn’t have to remove the gags of any more of them until he is done with the pentagram.  
Then he grabs the knife he used to slice the baby open (warm, delicious blood spilling over his fingers and the sweet iron smell that still fills the air) and he cuts his own arm, lets his blood drip onto the now desecrated ground. As he speaks the words the demon whispered into his ear, he can feel himself become more aroused, while the bundles around him start screaming and convulsing as power curses through them, sucking the life out of them and amplifying his call.  
Then the room shakes and Lucifer appears in front of him, glowing with power, a proud smile on His lips. He’s not right, not as powerful as he should be, because he’s inhabiting some random guy (the angel, Nick’s memories supply, the damned angel that hung out with the Winchesters and helped put Him back in the cage and rage flows through him. Why does he get to experience this and Nick is empty, empty, empty-), but then Lucifer steps forward and Nick can feel his knees buckle and he crashes down, hitting the blood soaked floor with a soft squelch. His world is iron and ozone and power and Nick is painfully hard in his pants by the time Lucifer stops in front of him.  
“You’re back”, is all he manages to say and there’s betrayal and awe filling those words. _You’re back, but not for me. You’re back, but in him. You’re back, but I know you still want him more than you could ever want me. And yet, you came to me when I called._ Nick has to swallow disappointment, anger, because Lucifer is so close now, grace all around, but not enough, never enough when Lucifer is not sunk deep into him, thrumming through his bones and blood. He wants so much more than he is granted and it makes him want to scream or beg. He can feel tears pricking at his eyes and the breath catches in his throat in weak sobs.  
“Don’t be resentful.” Lucifer reaches out and gently touches his cheek and Nick finally relaxes, leans into it, cold washing over him and he wishes it would seep deeper than just the first few layers of skin. “I have a plan for you. You were after all always faithful to me.” And then Lucifer bends down, lips intimately close to Nick’s ear and He whispers His plan like the snake did in Eden, planting a seed in fruitful earth.  
When Nick leaves the warehouse turned slaughterhouse, he’s a man on a mission. And he feels more fulfilled than he has in years.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of Lucifer/possession related trauma, murder mention, slight sexual content again

Nick remembers when he first saw Sam Winchester. He had been laying in his bed, sprawled out shirtless and Lucifer had flown directly in his dreams. He hadn’t needed to take Nick with him, could have knocked him out for this, but He had wanted Nick to see why Sam was so special. He had morphed Nick’s face, hidden it behind a pretty blond thing and Sam had fallen for it immediately. The intensity of Lucifer’s feelings for him had unsettled Nick, had scared him even. He had been worried of losing Him right then and there, but then Lucifer had revealed the truth to Sam, who had reeled back, terror on his face and Nick had liked that. He’d find him again, would do anything he needed, just to see that face again.  
As it turned out finding him again was quite easy. Lucifer had told him where to go, of course, knowledge gained from his current vessel, but Nick had still taken his time, knowing that if he got there too fast, no lies in the world would fool the Winchesters. When he finally stumbles up to the bunker, he has been walking for days, barely eating, barely sleeping. He needs to look the part after all.  
He hammers against the door, pleads, begs, tries his best to sound broken. “He’s back, Sam, can’t you feel it? He’s back and he could come for me again, please, please, please, don’t let him get me again.” The lie flows easily over his tongue and Nick has to fight down the pride he feels at that. On his own, much smaller scale, he is also a King of Lies and when Sam finally opens the bunker door (after much too long and Nick wonders whether or not they discussed if Nick could even be let in, if it was a trap or if Sam simply froze, thinking the Devil was knocking on his front door, begging him to say yes again), he accepts being drenched in holy water, the angel knife buried in his arm, the silver and salt treatment and the handcuffs with symbols carved into them with a mask of sadness and sincerity.  
Sam doesn’t trust him. Neither does Dean. Both of them have just experienced their best friend covering for the serpent in their midst. They don’t even know Nick, only know him as Lucifer’s vessel, never cared to get to know him at all, so Nick doesn’t feel offended. Well, okay, maybe he feels a little bit offended for the hypothetical Nick he could be. If he actually was here, begging for their help, truly unsettled and scared by this whole thing, their distrust might hurt. But like this, it doesn’t. It’s just another hurdle to overcome.  
He keeps his calm throughout it all. Thanks them for letting him come in, smiles when they reveal that no angels or demon can enter, he lets his eyes wander over the fresh enochian symbols drawn onto the door after they take the blindfold off, that they used to lead him into a dark and compared to the rest of the bunker rather cool room. He pretends not to notice the awkward glance they exchange, favoring the role of the traumatized terrified shell shocked man he’s been playing in public ever since Lucifer entered his life. When he had killed his wife and kid, two demons had made sure that there was no trace left of his involvement. He hadn’t even needed to clean himself up much - they’d taken and disposed of his old clothes - had just stumbled to the phone and sobbed and cried while the dispatcher was speaking in a calm voice, trying to get him to lead her through what had happened. After that it hadn’t taken long for Lucifer to appear in his bedroom, wearing his wife’s face. And then Nick hadn’t had to worry about what he was doing or how to act, because Lucifer called the shots. He missed that feeling nearly as much as Lucifer’s cold grace flowing through him.  
When a janitor had found him collapsed in the empty warehouse in Chicago, Nick had been laying there for at least a day, probably longer - time didn’t matter when Lucifer wasn’t there, minutes just stretched into endless agonies and at that point nothing had mattered anymore. After Lucifer had left him, Nick had just stayed where he dropped as Lucifer defeated Sam’s will and left. He had waited for Lucifer to return, waited for him to come back and fulfill his promise (that, as soon as he had his real vessel, as soon as Michael was out of the way, he would come and get Nick again and then they could be happy together), but Lucifer hadn’t come. Instead Nick felt his world crumble, when suddenly everything was ripped away from him. He felt the moment Sam took back control, heard Lucifer’s scream of rage and betrayal as he was thrown back into the cage, felt something inside of him shudder and curl up and then slowly, slowly fade no matter how hard he tried to hold onto it, leaving him with a hollow dark pit inside. But Lucifer’s essence was never entirely gone from him, only dormant, he had finally realized and now that he had been close to Lucifer again, it was singing praises inside of him and he wanted more. He knows what he has to do for that though and so he plays his role.  
He tells them part of this story. About the loss of his wife he relays what the police knows - that two people, who couldn’t remember the deed had been accused to breaking into his house and slaughtering his baby son and his wife, how he had found them and then Lucifer had promised him retaliation. Sam’s eyes flare at that and Nick suspects Lucifer also tried to sell him a deal of revenge, bloody and terrible, but that Sam had refused to go along with that, or at least hadn’t let himself enjoy it. Good, pure Sammy. So weak and pathetic. Nick is going to enjoy breaking him in for Lucifer again. He tells them about the janitor that found him, about going to a closed psychiatry because he had been so afraid of himself - after all his hands had killed all those people… there had been so much blood (Nick has to stop himself from talking any further about this because he sees the pain and understanding in Sam’s eyes and for a moment he just wants to scream that the reason he can’t go on about this is that he would get far too excited, not sadness, not trauma, but lust. Instead he copies Sam and plays the victim). He tells them about the long, itchy and painful healing process of the sores on his face, sees both of their eyes tracing the scars and probably remembering how he used to look when Lucifer was burning through him. He goes on, continues to the time when he finally got out, went into assisted living, then rented a small apartment, got a part-time, then full-time job, weekly therapy. How he built a life again for himself in the years that Lucifer was gone, or at least tried to.  
And how he had woken up two weeks ago, to something inside of him screaming that He was back. Nick had run pretty much immediately. Left his home, his job, but instead of going on a murder spree first, in this retelling he had started traveling immediately. He had known that he’d have to find somebody else who knew how this felt. He had at first just wanted to look in the hunter community to see if anybody else knew that Lucifer was back and then he had found out that Sam was still alive and so that had become his new mission. He had found his way to them by asking many people many questions. Dean immediately gestured for Sam to leave the room and check this out and Sam had walked away. Nick liked the way his shoulders were just a bit too tight despite his best efforts to look unbothered as he left.  
Dean stays, hovering above Nick, eyes cold and jaw set. Nick looks up at him and smiles softly. “Again, thanks for letting me come here. I know it can’t have been easy… The things Lucifer wanted to do to this world… The things he did… I’m glad your brother stopped it.”  
Dean scows, but he backs off a little. “So, how much do you know?”  
_That He’s in your buddy Castiel, that He’s not here, but He was and He will be again, He will come get Sam and then me and finally He will be with me, forever this time._ Nick shrugs. “Not a lot. He obviously didn’t expect for Sam to wrestle him back into the pit and he certainly never expected to come back from there again. None of this was in his plan, not back when he was possessing me. But… knowing him… When Sam destroyed his plans, he couldn’t have been happy… Now that he’s back… I worry he might come after everybody that he thinks betrayed him.” Nick shudders, hoping it will hide the grin that he’s finally unable to fully keep off his face. _They are talking to him, listening to him._Hope floods through him.  
Dean doesn’t seem to notice and when Nick finally looks up, Dean isn’t even looking at him anymore, face taunt, stress etched into it and his big green eyes filled with sadness as he stares into the distance. Winchester finally shakes out of it and turns back to Nick. “Yes, it wasn’t… Anyway, you know Lucifer’s back, so you’re not getting out of here, until we can be sure that we can trust you. And don’t worry, Lucifer can’t visit you.”  
Dean is eying him carefully again as he says this and so Nick tries his best to look relieved. But underneath the warning, Nick can also hear sadness in Dean’s voice and that kinda makes it hard not to want to investigate deeper. Lucifer told him that he spent a bit of time in the bunker pretending to be Castiel but no specifics and Nick desperately wants to know what exactly Lucifer had done to Sam in the time he had spent with him. If he got close to him pretending to be his friend, if Sam noticed that something was off immediately, or if Lucifer could press his luck. He quickly forces that train of thought down. He cannot afford his body messing up all the trust he’s trying to build because he gets too excited. It’s something he’ll want to think about more later though. And who knows, maybe he’ll find a way to hurt Sam to, maybe not as bad, because no one can be stronger than the Devil, but he desperately wants to at least make him shed one of those pretty, pretty tears. “Thank you”, he forces out, before he gets too lost in his daydreams or Dean notices something is up. “For letting me stay I mean. I know Lucifer did some fucked up things while he was using my body… I just didn’t know where else to go to be safe.” He really puts it on thick, but he needs to be close to the Winchesters to put this plan in motion. He hopes they’ll let him stay, because that would make everything so much easier than it could be otherwise. A kidnapping under Dean Winchester’s suspicious eyes is just so much more work. And of course, there’s still the manner of getting Sam to say yes. It’s better if that happens more or less out of free will.  
Dean is silent for a moment. “I’ll be back.” Then he also leaves and for the first time since they let him into the Bunker, Nick is alone. Well, he’s still handcuffed to a bed and even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be stupid and lose their budding trust by going off to explore around here, but he still itches to know more about the way Sam has been living since Lucifer left. Settling down with his brother in this fortress, well, it definitely doesn’t look as if he has been able to get out this life, but he’s also no longer drifting aimlessly as the Sam back then had been.  
Even after all these years, he was still following Lucifer’s big plan like a good dog, always making sure his vessel is good and suitable for Him. Of course, he had thrown a little wrench in the works here and there, but it wasn’t enough, would never be enough. Still it did seem as if Sam liked it here, had enjoyed settling down here, maybe even found a semblance of peace, no matter how flimsy it might be. Nick would love to tear the bandages of his eyes as soon as possible to remind him of the dark reality of life around him, but he could wait. He could savor this and he was sure it would taste that much sweeter when the time was ripe. He stares into the dark and imagines red swirling eyes staring back at him, shining with pride.  
Minutes, or hours, pass. Then he hears footsteps coming down the hallway and it’s SamAndDean, the brother team, much more united than they had been back then and for a second Nick understands why angels and demons alike are afraid of them. They make a truly scary couple, always ready to fight to save the world and fight even harder to save each other. Then they both step in the light and Nick sees them clearly again. One big brother, desperate to protect his younger, maybe to make up for some other mistakes he made before. One younger brother, terribly afraid, but determined to act tough, determined to get through this and desperately clutching to his older brother’s presence as if it was a lifeline. Both of them so very human and weak.  
“Okay, I hope you like this room, because this is gonna be your lodge for now.” Dean gestures his arms around the mostly empty room, at the bed and a small table that stands against the wall. Then he bends down and pulls a bucket from beside the door, dangling it by the handle. “In case you have some business to attend to.” While Dean’s walking up to him, Nick feels his eyes being drawn to Sam, who’s still standing by the door, his hand on his hip and Nick can see the glint of a gun under his flannel. Focusing on that clear level of apprehension makes it easy to not scowl at the bucket that Dean drops in front of him.  
Nick forces a smile on his face. “That’s… that’s great, it means a lot.”  
Sam who’s been staying in the background before this, now finally steps forward and his face is red hot rage to mask fear. “This is a one opportunity kind of thing, okay? We’re letting you stay here because you’re human and if there’s any good in you, you deserve a second chance. But I promise you, if you came here to cause trouble for my brother or me, you will regret it. I will make sure of that.”  
Nick lowers his head to hide his smirk. Even if Sam tries to act tough (and Nick doesn’t disbelieve for a second that he would follow through on his threats and for a short moment a destructive part of Nick wants to bait him into doing it, wants to lay the truth out in the open so that Sam has no other chance but to kill him with his bare hands, sullying himself with blood all over), he is so scared and Nick loves hearing that. He’ll have to make sure he gets to hear a bit more of that, before he truly starts digging into Sam to break him. He lets his voice tremble as he answers. “Of course. I- I would never do that. I just wanted out, but… with Him back, I don’t think that’s possible anymore. Thank you”, he whispers and that seems to do the job.  
Sam’s shoulders relax the tiniest bit and he moves back again, always making sure to enlarge the distance between the two of them again. It feels a bit like a dance and Nick hates that he has to keep back and can’t give chase yet.  
“Okay, well… We’ll be back with some food in a bit. Do you have any clothes with you or do we need to go buy some?” Dean takes control again and then finally leans over to unlock Nick’s cuffs from the bed.  
Nick rubs his wrists and points to the duffel that one of them must have put down next to the door. “I have a little bit, but I might need more. I only took a few things with me, because I don’t have a car, so I had to hitchhike and walk here. Obviously, that didn’t allow me to bring much.” After his stint at the warehouse, he had sunk his car in the river - there had been blood on the backseat where one of his packages had bleed from a gash that they had gained when Nick had acquired them and that would have looked suspicious when the Winchesters inevitably wanted to see and examine it - and had made his way here at a snail’s pace instead.  
Dean seizes him up and nods. “If you need any shirts quickly, you can have some of mine. There’s not gonna be any shopping trips in the near future.”  
Nick nods at that. “Could I have my duffel now?” He suspects they already went through it in detail and found nothing but a few changes of clothes, some money, an e-reader and a flask of holy water. All he’s lacking is a cavity search, but somehow Nick gets the feeling that the brothers don’t really wanna do that kind of thing. Not that they would find anything. Nick obviously didn’t take anything incriminating with him. Sam takes a deep breath, then he squares his shoulders, picks it up and takes the few steps across the room hurriedly.  
“Here you go.” Sam tosses it forward, pitching it nearly violent towards Nick and Nick scrambles to catch it and lets out a grunt as it hits him in the chest. When Nick looks up, anger blazing through him, he is not met with the same emotion on Sam’s face, but instead Sam’s face is blank and calculating. Nick sees the challenge in that, knows that if he lashes out Sam will never trust him like he wants him too and he decides to back down. Letting out a deep breath, he curls over the duffel now laying on his thighs, putting a bit of a whine in his voice as he grunts out a thanks and that’s when the guilt floods in. “Sorry”, Sam mumbles and quickly steps back towards the door.  
“It’s… okay”, Nick says, waving it off. He’ll get him back for that, but not right now. He’ll need some better leverage first.  
Sam tries to hover in the door frame as he did earlier but the tension is much too visible in his body now and a slight tremor has started to shake his right hand. With Dean’s gaze heavy on his brother and worry barely hidden in his face, Nick knows they’ll leave soon and that’s probably for the best. He doesn’t want to stretch his luck too far, too fast and all that acting is exhausting.  
He straightens and puts the duffel to the ground. “Uh… would it be possible, that I could get cleaned up somewhere around here?” He gestures at his body, still dirty from his trek and Dean’s eyes return to him and then, surprisingly, he actually nods. “I’ll bring you some things later.”  
Nick nods and then Sam slinks out of the door, Dean follows and then they close the door, the sound of the key being turned echoing loudly in the mostly empty room.


	3. Chapter 3

Nick isn’t entirely sure how much time passes, while he is locked in the room. As promised Dean came by with a tub filled with thankfully warm water and two towels and weirdly enough a sweater. He puts the things down and left again, moving quickly and quietly, leaving Nick to clean himself. After washing days of trekking through the forest from his skin and getting dressed in the second set of clothes Nick had taken with him, Nick sits back down on the bed and examines the room. Besides the door there’s no other openings in the wall, no windows, no vents, nothing. The walls are covered in a variety of symbols, some that Nick kinda remembers from whichever consciousness he shared with Lucifer, but it’s all a bit blurry. At least the light is strong above him, not a dim, flickering mess like old appliances can be sometimes. Nick is pretty sure this Bunker is old. That was evident not just by the way it is hidden by the landscape - even with a good description of the way, Nick had taken quite a bit longer than he had planned to find it - but mostly by the things Nick has seen so far. The appliances on the door and in the hallway he had first stepped in had seemed old, clunky and a decided lack of chrome, but a quiet hum had told him they were probably active. Even the bed looks old, misplaced in time, but it didn’t seem used, the mattress still soft and bouncy despite its age. It feels a bit like he somehow time traveled.  
It’s also quite cool, whatever heating they have in here may not extend this far, or they don’t want to turn it on and that’s when Nick realizes why Dean put the sweater here. Lucifer was cold as ice and when he was possessing Nick, he too had always been freezing. Now, he personally liked the feeling, spent most of winter partially under dressed and most of summer in heavily air conditioned rooms, but Dean didn’t know that. Sam on the other hand, had been wearing multiple layers, shielding himself from the cold despite the warmth in the other rooms. He files that away for later, but for now he puts the sweater on, thinking that this clear separation from Lucifer’s ice might make him seem a bit more palatable to them, then he leans back and starts searching through his duffel bag for his e-book reader, but comes up empty. Did those assholes take it away from him?  
He resigns himself to ask, then sighs and lays down on top of his blankets, settling in for the long haul. This could be a long and boring stay if he’s unlucky.  
He however, doesn’t get to lay there long and think about the way Lucifer’s eyes seem to shine from the corner, watching, waiting, expecting - and Nick knows Lucifer isn’t pressuring him, knows that these things take time, but this is a torture for him anyway, being so close and yet unable to further his progress and now he’s waiting again and he hates it - because soon he hears the jingle of a key being put put in a lock and the scrape of a bolt being opened and after calling out to ask if he’s decent and waiting for an affirmative Dean enters the room again. Nick wonders if this is how it will be from now on, Dean as his grumpy prison guard and Sam hidden behind many walls like a princess in her tower. Nick has to fight down a chuckle at the idea of climbing up a wall, clutching to Sam’s luscious locks. He manages to school his face back into a more neutral position by the time Dean has closed the door behind him and comes towards him. Dean hands him a tray with food on it and without saying another word leaves. Nick is too busy not cracking up from the image, that he doesn’t even think to ask for his reader.  
Thankfully, after Nick has eaten - its surprisingly good and Nick wonders which of the boys can cook like that - Dean comes back to pick up the tray, carrying a toothbrush and toothpaste as well as more water for more bodily hygiene.  
Nick asks him for his reader and if he could have it again, just so he has something to do. Dean doesn’t even answer him, just shakes his head curtly and leaves. After some time spent tossing and turning, Nick finally falls asleep. His body is so exhausted from the travel, that when the tension finally fades away, he sleeps long and deep and without dreams.  
In the morning Dean brings him another tray of food, pancakes this time, his reader beside the plate.  
“Thank you.” It’s the first honest thing he’s said to them, with a real smile, and for a moment Dean seems taken aback. Nick quickly drops the smile and his gaze and fiddles with the reader, thinking desperately of a way to assuage his doubts. “It’s just… you’re being so kind to me. I kinda expected more… high security prison or torture dungeon than…” He gestures around the room and again, he truly means what he’s saying. Yes, he’s still a prisoner, but he’s definitely not the Guantanamo Bay kind and from what he knows from the Winchester’s exploits against the Supernatural, they are definitely treating him with a lot more kindness than he thought he’d receive.  
For a moment Dean shifts uncomfortably and then settles for harsh nod. “Well, like Sam said, we do believe in second chances.”  
Oh, how sweet. If Nick actually cared, this might warm his heart a bit, but now it just makes his skin crawl. How have they not gotten killed yet? He turns on his Reader after sending Dean a weak thank-you smile again. Dean leaves and the first thing Nick discovers is that despite having the Reader hooked to his phone’s data plan, he doesn’t have any Internet access. Whether that’s a feature of the bunker or something they did while they kept and most likely searched his Reader he can’t tell. He grumbles, but then he expected them to try something to stop him from contacting the outside world. There’s not that naive at least.  
He leans back, turns the brightness to a comfortable level, sizes up the font size - he’s in his forties after all and all that staring into angel grace when Lucifer left him probably did not do them any favor - and pulls up the first of the books he’s downloaded. Waiting and passing time just got a lot easier.  
It stays relatively easy for the first two days at which point the battery of his Reader is mostly depleted, he’s not exchanged more than 20 sentences with Dean, who’s still mostly the quiet but grumpy type whenever he comes in and he’s searched through the entire room he’s in like three times, trying to find a socket. But there’s not a single one to be found and so he finally decides to try and get their attention somehow. He’s bored despite doing everything he can think off - well there’s one more thing he can think of, but without access to actual water and only a shitty bucket to catch it his release might be too obvious and he’s not sure how the Winchesters would react to that - hoping that him being quiet and unassuming might give them cause to let him out of here earlier. He yearns for an actual shower and not just the sponge baths he has to give himself every evening. He wants to get out of here and he finally wants to see Sam and he wants to stop waiting around, trying to occupy his mind with the many shitty books he downloaded. He should have added some movies to his downloads when he still had Internet access, but if he could turn time back a bit, he might do a few things different. Too late now though. That doesn’t stop him from daydreaming about it. Hell, he’d even enjoy the act of opening his e-mails by now, just to see a few spam mails. Anything to get his mind of the idea that’s been rolling through his mind, telling him that he’s failing Lucifer, each day that he is forced to wait around for Sam and Dean to finally allow him into their lives. He’d be satisfied if they stayed with him a bit longer, allowed him to sweet talk his way into their minds at least a bit, or if he could finally see Sam again and the way Nick’s presence unsettles him.  
So he walks up to the locked door and bangs against it a couple of times. “Sam? Dean? Guys?” He calls out and after waiting for a bit, he bangs against the door again. Then he hears a door being opened and quick steps coming down the hallway.  
“Nick, you okay?” Nick’s heart beats faster. Sam!  
He quickly hurries back to his bed and pulls the sweater on. He’s got appearances to keep up after all. “I’m fine, but my readers battery’s kinda running low and I was wondering if you could charge it for me?”  
Then the door unlocks and Sam is standing in front of him, all alone this time. He’s immensely tense, breathing slightly heavy and his hair is a bit of a mess and awww, isn’t that adorable, Sam came running just for him. “Oh, I forgot that there’s no sockets in here.” At least he has the good grace to look ashamed, even as he stands in the doorway as if he’s ready to bolt any second now, throw the door closed and never come back.  
Nick turns around, grabs the reader and digs the charger out of his duffel and then he gets up slowly. Sam has been looking around the room, gaze fixed anywhere but on Nick as he was crouched in front of his bed, but as soon as Nick moves again, his eyes snap back to him. He gets tenser with every step Nick comes closer, but then finally Nick stops in front of him and Sam is still there, hasn’t slammed the door in his face, despite his fingers being curled tight enough that his knuckles are white. Nick slowly reaches out and Sam gingerly takes the reader and the charger. “I’ll bring it back later… If… I…” Sam trails off, clearly struggling with talking while Nick is so close and Nick can see the hairs on his neck standing up, the light reflecting from them in a soft glow and for a second Nick wants to surge forward and run his hand over the skin there, see if Sam is cold or if it’s just fear and then he could maybe slide his hand further down and squeeze until the guilt and fear fades from Sam’s eyes, leaving them cold like they should be if Lucifer was in front of him and not this stupid broken man. Unfortunately a dead man can’t consent no matter the manipulation used and so Nick has to hold himself back. “Is there anything you’d want in the mean time? We do have some books if you need something else to read. Or I could bring you a laptop, so you can watch some movies.”  
_A warm shower with delicious water pressure would be nice_, Nick thinks, but he knows that’s a no go at least for now. “Do you have any newspapers? I miss keeping up with what’s going on out there.”  
“Well, about that…” Sam grimaces slightly as he continues. “We don’t really get newspapers delivered here. If you want I can download a few recent issues to your Reader here, but…”  
“But you can’t give me access to the Internet just yet… I get that. Just a few of the national ones should be fine if you can do that, I’d just… like to see if something happened.” For a moment he’s tempted to ask about a regional one from where he called Lucifer to him, but since he had no ties to that place, had picked it specifically for that, it might make him suspicious.  
Sam nods and then turns around to leave, but stops in the door frame, shoulders moving slightly as he shifts uncomfortably. Nick watches him, eyebrows furrowed, because as nice as it is to see Sam torn on whether he should stay or go - no better way to make a boy feel special after all - he can’t read Sam at all right now. He might be fighting with anger, or guilt, or thousand other emotions and for the first time since Nick arrived here, he realizes that he does not know Sam as well as he should. Lucifer had given him tons of knowledge, always rambling and ranting about Sam like any jilted lover might… especially one that had kept tabs on their bride to be for their entire life, but it is not enough and that gnaws at Nick. Then Sam turns around, his face neutral and careful as he starts to speak.  
“If… If this is because you want to know what Lucifer is up to, tracking signs and all that, I can spare you the trouble.” He’s not looking at Nick as he speaks, staring stoically ahead and his voice shakes a little bit as he mentions His name. “There’s nothing. He’s been laying low or at least low enough that nothing pinged up on our radar yet. So whatever he’s up too… we don’t know about it.”  
And that terrifies Sam, but fills Nick with pride. So Lucifer does trust him enough to get this done. He’s giving him space and time to work on it. The relief on his face is not faked either, but he knows Sam will interpret it a lot differently than it is intended to be.  
“Thanks for telling me. Then just some books should be fine.”  
“Anything specific you’d like? We don’t have too much non-fiction, just some fantasy and fairy tales.”  
“Whatever you think is good to entertain me for a while in here.”  
Sam nods and leaves, returning shortly later with a few books from the library. “I’ll bring you your reader later, when it’s fully charged.” Then he’s gone again.  
Nick settles back down, leafing through the books Sam left him. A few hours later, a knock interrupts him and Dean plays the guard again, carrying the tray, but Sam is there with him as well, just watching and observing and his lips curls into a little smile when Nick comments on how he’d wanted to read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for a while now and that it’s good so far. Dean is just watching carefully as always, but this time there’s more than just anger in his eyes. He keeps glancing at Sam nervously as if he doesn’t quite believe that what he’s doing is smart, but Sam just juts his chin forward and keeps his shoulders squared, trying to look more confident than he feels. His eyes still betray him, too big and too sensitive or maybe it’s just that Nick knows that Sam is afraid of him and that makes Nick feel quite happy.  
Days pass, Sam visits sometimes to recharge Nick’s e-book reader, to bring him new books and sometimes he stays a bit to chat about them, Dean always there now, hovering outside the door or leaning against the wall, constantly watching like a good guard dog. There are never any news about Lucifer, but Sam makes sure that Nick gets at least a daily update even if it’s just that there’s nothing happening and that’s nice. It gives Nick a lot more confidence. Even chatting with Dean isn’t too hard now that Sam has started paying him some attention. Relatively soon Dean has also started offering him a trip to the toilet instead of using the bucket and even though it’s annoying having to rely on them being there to be able to take a leak, Nick definitely prefers these trips than the undignified squats that had accompanied his bowel movements before.  
After another whole week, they allow Nick to leave the room and take his first real shower. Nick makes the most of the limited time he has, ice cold water embracing him lovingly as he finally gets to touch himself again. It’s good, even better than he remembers masturbation being in a while and despite his best attempts to stay quiet, he’s not sure if he managed. When he finally walks out of the bathroom to where Dean is standing and waiting, Dean is giving him a side eye, but Nick just shrugs.  
Well, Nick’s pretty sure that Dean wouldn’t judge him even if he knew. He’s just a guy after all and he has some urges he has to take care of. So he doesn’t try to repress the slight spring in his step too much as Dean leads him to the kitchen. They decided that today Nick can enjoy his dinner not just in the same room, but also at the same table with them and Nick knows that this is a big step in the right direction. Sam is sitting at the table already, nose buried in some book until Nick steps into the room and then he’s paying rapt attention to Nick again, despite trying to seem not too obvious. His eyes never let Nick out of his line of sight, now that he is moving around the Bunker relatively freely and that alone makes pride swell in Nick’s chest. Of course, he hadn’t actually contributed directly to Sam’s reaction yet, but the thought that at some point he might deserve this kind of reverence and awe from Sam makes a shudder run down his back. And getting someone’s undivided attention like that would be flattering to anybody.  
He smiles softly and thanks them again as he sits down. Then Sam brings three plates and a pan to the table. He made pasta with mushroom sauce and when Dean mumbles that this is missing some meat and actual protein, something like revulsion flickers through Sam’s eyes and Dean doesn’t bring it up again. Nick himself doesn’t interact with them, just praises the food and then digs in. It is quiet while they eat, just the noise of forks scraping against plates and chewing filling the kitchen. Dean sometimes stops a bit, opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, but in the end he never does and after a while Nick’s plate is empty. He looks back up and sees that Sam’s plate is still nearly full. Dean gets up and gestures for Nick to do the same.  
He feels Sam’s eyes following him as he gets up and lifts his plate. “You can just leave it here, I’ll take care of that”, Sam says, his voice trying and failing to sound kind. Instead he just sounds tense and Nick knows he most likely just wants to know Nick is safely put away in his cell again. Nick shrugs and smiles, more of an upwards quirk of his lips, not hungry like Lucifer used to smile and some tension melts from Sam.  
“Thank you”, he mumbles and puts the plate back down.  
After that Nick gets to spend more time outside his room. The next day Dean picks him up for breakfast after offering him the chance to get cleaned up in the morning and while he still waits in front of the bathroom, probably just to make sure Nick doesn’t burst out and run around the Bunker, wreaking havoc, some of the tension seems to have drained out of him. Nick enjoys getting to brush his teeth in an actual bathroom again and he slowly starts feeling a bit less like a prisoner. After a few more days, Sam offers him to come to the library with him and maybe choose his own books and Nick happily follows, looking through the shelves while Sam is reading at the main table.  
Dean is still hovering, pretending to leaf through a book in one of the library chairs until it’s time to escort Nick back into his cell.  
Sam too, has started to be a bit more forthcoming and soon they talk a bit after the finished eating. Talking with Sam is easy, even though he knows they are both dancing around the actual topic at hand - Lucifer and their possession never comes up and Nick isn’t always sure if it because Sam doesn’t want to yet or if it is Dean’s cock block that he commits by existing near them - and so instead they talk about books, about anything interesting Nick has read recently and at some point Sam asks him if he knows podcasts. Nick knows that they are a thing of course, but he has never listened to one.  
Sam actually grins at him when he asks him for recommendations and then suddenly he’s rambling, asking what topics Nick likes, if he’s fine with True Crime or History podcasts or if he would find fictional podcasts more interesting and after Nick says he’s up for pretty much everything as long as it’s interesting, Sam promises to download a few of them onto a burner phone they have laying around and bring it to Nick later. Then Nick grabs a few books and returns to his… well by now it’s probably more of his room than a cell and reads until Dean gets him for Lunch. After that Sam hands him a phone and some earphones. Nick spends the rest of his day listened to a few of the episodes Sam got for him. It’s interesting and getting to lay down and just listen to someone mention facts about criminal cases or the Reformation in Germany is enough to lull Nick into the most relaxed state he has been in in a while. At some point static suddenly disrupts his listening and Nick shoots up, hope clenching his stomach tight. It doesn’t take long and he hears it again, the same static and happiness floods through him. He doesn’t know how Lucifer does it, but he feels the room temperature drop a little bit further as some form of magic lets Lucifer speak two words to Nick. “Good job.”  
After another week, still no news about Lucifer, Nick is slowly allowed a little bit more freedom of walking around the Bunker by himself. Nick already knows the most important places in the Bunker - well except where Sam’s bedroom is, but he doesn’t think asking for that information would go over well, so he doesn’t -, but now he is actually allowed to walk around without Dean hovering right behind him and at one point when Nick says he’s going to the bathroom before their daily library dates, no Winchester follows right behind him. Nick doesn’t abuse his privilege, knowing it’s probably really hard for them to already give him this and so he only goes to the bathroom and comes right back.  
This is the first time Nick sees something like hope in Sam’s eyes. It’s pathetic and disgusting, but also intoxicating and it makes his heart beat faster as he thinks of taking that hope, ripping it out of Sam’s chest and squashing it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: hypothetical and very short description of animal death during a car accident, violence and murder, implied self harm/self injury, short sexual content

  
Then finally there is a day, when Nick is allowed to walk to the kitchen by himself. Dean simply unlocks his bedroom door, waits until he is out and then tells him he has to grab something from another room real quick and that Nick should go on ahead. Of course, it’s probably another test, but Nick doesn’t intend on failing it, too excited for what actual trust could bring him. After a short stop in the bathroom - he really wishes he had more regular access to a toilet instead of the bucket -, he walks to the kitchen where Sam is standing at the counter, a pot of freshly brewed coffee beside him, smelling deliciously.  
“Hey, Sam”, Nick calls out from the door just as Sam is pouring coffee into the cup. Sam jumps, clearly not having expected him and then flinch back as the hot coffee pours over his hand, fingers still curled around the mug and dragging it over the counter top. The mug slips from his fingers and falls straight down until it shatters - is that how it felt when he jumped into the pit with Him, Nick muses, but quickly banishes the thought from his brain. It would make him too angry. Sam lets out a strangled gasp perhaps at the pain and whirls around to stare at Nick, blank terror on his face for the first time since he looked at Nick after their encounter at the door. Nick doesn’t know what caused Sam to be so spooked by his sudden appearance until he realizes that this is the first time Dean is not walking down the hallway besides him, and of course Nick had realized that Dean had been walking relatively loudly for a hunter, his boots slapping against the tile floor in a way that now, in retrospect, feels deliberate and it seems that these sneaky bastards had worked out a warning system to make sure Sam always knew if Nick was close. And he just broke through it when Sam hadn’t been expecting it at all. Satisfaction rushes through him, but he masks it quickly.   
“Oh shit, I am so sorry. Can I help you?” Nick inquires, tensing his body as if he’s about to rush over, but just barely holding himself back. He’s concerned for a friend after all, but also cautious of his boundaries.  
For a moment Sam is quiet, knuckles white as he holds onto the counter top and this is the reaction Nick was hoping for. He keeps his face creased in worry as he lifts up his hands and Sam jumps again when he points his palms at him. Nick quickly drops them again, trying to look guilty. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”  
Finally, Sam catches himself and schools his face into a calmer mask, then he eases his hand off the counter, before cradling the hurt one to his chest. “No, sorry. Just got a bit of a scare, that’s all. I’m fine.” Silence settles again and Sam’s eyes are fixed on him, wide and open and scared and Nick wishes he could step closer, hear the way his heart must be thundering in his ears, smell his fear, but if he moves to quickly Sam might bolt even with Nick blocking the only exit and it’s much more fun watching Sam trying to keep it under control. Nick finally breaks the eye contact and looks down and he knows Sam’s eye’s follow and then they are both staring at the shattered mug on the ground. Sam steps forward at the same moment as Nick does and they freeze again. Then a shudder goes through Sam as he bends down to pick up the shards of the shattered cup, while Nick carefully moves further forward. He can see Sam keeping an eye on him as he’s trying to pick up the shards without looking at them, his hands shaking bad enough that it’s a wonder he hasn’t already cut himself.  
“How about you cool your hand first and I can take care of that in the meantime?” Nick suggests, knowing he has to bring some kind of defense if he wants to be this close to Sam and Sam’s Adam’s Apple bobs in his throat as he swallows hard, forced to look up at him from his crouched and defenseless position and that definitely sends a delicious jolt through Nick’s body. As close as he is to Sam right now, hovering above him, he can see Sam’s body straining to get away from him, the tense muscles where his arms aren’t hidden under layers of flannel, the same with his neck and his overall rigid posture, and a tick in his jaw. He pulls back fractionally, allowing Sam a way out from his trap and Sam quickly takes him up on the offer, jumping up fast enough that he nearly topples over backwards, mumbling a thanks, before he hurries away to the sink on the other side of the room.  
While Nick is picking up the ceramic shards, he can’t help but watch him and the tremor that is shaking him more visibly now. Whatever Lucifer did to him in the cage really messed him up. Not that Sam didn’t deserve it, after all he dragged Him down there to rot where Lucifer had already spent millennia, locked away by a shitty dad who couldn’t handle healthy communication. Nick files that away as something to keep in mind. Sam had especially seemed to hate it when Nick hovered above him, eyes carefully tracking every twitch of Nick’s muscles… The heady feel of power he feels rush through him again, makes him wish he had spent some time in the shower before coming here.   
By the time he’s picked up all the shards and gets up, balancing them between his fingers, Sam is drying his own and seems to have calmed down a little bit. His movement has become a bit more fluid and it seems that most of the tremor has been suppressed or stopped. Sam moves away after kicking open a garbage can, trying his best to seem calm and collected, but it is clear that he is far from okay. He keeps his eyes on Nick, his back to the wall whenever possible and there’s barely hidden panic in his eyes. After dumping the shards and washing his hands, he turns around to where Sam is now standing on the other side of the kitchen still warily watching Nick, the pot of coffee forgotten beside him. He’s holding a paper towel that quickly turns red pressed against his palm and that’s interesting because Nick is sure that Sam didn’t cut himself while he trying - and failing - to pick up the shards himself. But at least Sam seems to have himself under control again.  
For a little while, they warily look at each other, then Sam finally speaks. “Want one?” He reaches into the cupboard, over exaggerated calm in his every move and Nick is pretty sure Sam is counting his breaths and maybe using a few other methods of calming himself down. His eyes remain fixed on Nick, pupils dilated and Nick thinks he’s feeling like what a driver must feel before they crash into a deer that ran on the street. Well, if they desperately want to hit the deer and watch it fly through the air, that is, if they can’t wait on the impact and screech of tires and the terrible gore that follows. Nick wishes he could brace himself for that, but instead he breaks the eye contact himself and nods tensely, trying to seem ashamed of having startled Sam.  
“Yes, that’d be great. I haven’t slept too well since…” He trails off and Sam’s tense nod tells him that Sam understands, even though of course he doesn’t understand at all, doesn’t understand because he doesn’t know the truth and could never fully understand even if he did know the truth. It makes Nick want to tear Sam’s eyes out that have shifted from fear to fear with just the tiniest glint of compassion and leave him to cower and weep, remind him of his damn place in this story, but he promised Lucifer not to lay a finger on his precious boy unless absolutely necessary. “Well, you know… Thanks.”   
Sam pushes the warm mug towards him on the counter and Nick reaches for it, then they drift apart again, but less than before. It’s at least a step in the right direction.  
“Morning”, Dean mumbles, as he walks into the kitchen and again the brothers have one of those silent communications, that Nick doesn’t entirely understand and for a moment Dean’s shoulders slump, relaxing around Nick for the first time ever, as he reaches for the pot. Then just as suddenly - and damn, Nick forgot how fast those hunters where - Dean tenses again and he’s rushing towards him and quickly has him pinned under him, a second mug flying through the air and shattering on the ground besides them. Nick only gets slightly burned by the hot coffee, but it’s enough to make him hiss in pain and anger.  
“Ouch, what the hell?” God, he wishes tearing Dean apart was part of the deal. But Lucifer had warned him of that. They would have to treat Dean well, at least until they truly had Sam under their control, then they could do with him as they pleased. Since neither him nor Lucifer wanted a repeat of Stull Cemetery, they would have to be a lot more careful even then, but for now he had to tread on eggshells. So instead of fighting back - just grabbing one of the shards and bury it in his neck, paint the walls and kitchen appliances with new splashes of color - Nick goes limb, trying to look afraid, even letting a pathetic whimper escape his mouth.  
“What did you do to my brother?” Dean growls and Nick just barely suppresses rolling his eyes. Nothing… yet. As if Nick would let Sam get away with a little cut on his hand if he thought it could help his plan. He’d really expect Dean to have a little more faith in his potential levels of evil, but unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Besides, the little scaredy cat did that all by himself, but somehow Nick doesn’t think Dean would like to hear that either.  
“I didn’t- the mug-” Nick stammers and then Sam finally steps forward, placing a hand on Dean’s shoulder.  
“Dean, it’s fine, it’s not his fault. I just… dropped my mug and cut myself trying to clean up. He didn’t hurt me.”  
And now Sam is closer to him than he has ever been so far, trying to pry Dean off him and while neither of them is looking at him, Dean twisted around to glare disbelievingly at his brother, Sam staring into his eyes with that pleading dog look of his, Nick allows a little smile to flit across his face, before putting on his mask again. Dean still scowls as he wordlessly gets off him and walks to the sink, but Sam holds out his hand - the one he didn’t cut - and Nick quickly grabs it, before he can think differently of it and pull back. It’s their first physical contact. A shudder goes through Sam, but he stays there until Nick is upright again, then he pulls back quickly.  
Well, maybe he should thank Dean after all, because the way Sam is looking at him now, all guilty and apologetic is also kinda nice. He puts maybe a little too much effort into the wince when he finally straightens, because Dean is glaring daggers at him from across the room, but Sam eats it up easily.   
“Are you hurt?” he inquires and wow, Sammy here definitely got a massive guilt complex, because he sounds way too upset for what actually happened. But Nick has always been the guy to jump at opportunities when they presented themselves and so he pushes forward harder than he initially planned on.  
Nick tries for a smile, but lets it fall as soon as it appears and the guilt just spreads further across Sam’s face. “I think I burned my side a bit, my coffee was still kinda hot.”   
“We got a salve for that. Uhm, I don’t think we showed you where the medicine cabinet is yet.” Nick sees something in Sam’s stance and behavior change, guilt still visible, but now he has an idea and a plan to follow and that seems to be easier for him to deal with. He too lets Nick walk in front of him, but considering he’s leading him in the bunker by himself, a brother glaring dangers left to clean up the mess in the kitchen, that is more than enough for now.  
He shows Nick where they keep a burn salve in the bathroom cabinet and quickly flees when Nick starts reaching for the buttons of his shirt. Nick doesn’t take too long in the bathroom, partially because thinking about Sam’s guilty face is enough to get him off quickly - its still the wrong thing to feel guilty for, but beggers can’t be chosers and Nick will take what he can get - and partially because he’s not actually that badly burned and so it doesn’t take him too long to apply the salve. God, he hates getting hurt, but he can bear a couple of bruises and the pain is dulled as he savors the way Sam look at him - not pity, but compassion, and yet still so very afraid. When he comes out of the bathroom, somebody - most definitely Sam - has left a clean flannel in front of it, and Nick changes into that.   
He makes his way back to the kitchen, once more walking as soft as possible, just as he had earlier this day, and again it pays off.  
“Maybe we should keep him in there for a bit longer. I mean… he’s out for one day and you got hurt, Sam, are you sure you can handle it already?”  
For a moment it’s quiet. “I have to. He… He doesn’t deserve to be locked up like that, not if he’s not dangerous. Not for a crime he didn’t commit.”  
There’s something in his voice that tells him that this is about a lot more than just his own possession by Lucifer and bless Sam’s bleeding do-gooder heart because Dean hums a yeah, you’re right and then it’s quiet in the kitchen again.  
Nick heard enough and with a proud grin on his face, he moves back a bit, composing himself for a few seconds - can’t march in there grinning like the cat who got the cream no matter how much he feels like it - before he trudges down the corridor again, stepping down harder this time and by the time he comes to the kitchen, Sam is sitting on the table, if he hasn’t already been there the whole time and Dean is leaning against the wall beside him.  
“You okay?” Sam asks as soon as he enters the room and Nick nods.  
“Yes, thank you. The salve helped.” From the corner of his eyes, he can see Dean move across the kitchen, but he doesn’t look at him, only focused on Sam, who’s looking less guilty than before, but also a lot less anxious.  
After a tense but not openly hostile breakfast, Sam takes a deep breath and looks at Nick as if he’s trying to solve a hard mathematical problem.  
“I have some research to do”, he finally says and gets up, grabbing both his and Nick’s plate to carry to the counter. Dean stiffens beside him, clearly taken aback by what Sam had just said and quickly moves out of Nick’s line of sight, probably to make weird faces at Sam to figure out what’s going on. Nick couldn’t care less about that right now, because this might shake out so much more positive for him than he ever imagined.  
“Is it… is it about Him?” Nick asks, although he already knows the answer - the way Sam had asked is guilt-tinged even as he tries to sound casual, his voice is just always filled with it. He’s not sure what exactly Sam is apologizing for now - whether it’s the freak out he had this morning, or Dean’s attack or just good old Lucifer again - but he’s not going to correct him. After all, he really wants to know what they are planning to do about Lucifer. So far Sam had just said that they were trying to figure out where he was, but that they hadn’t been able to find anything and Nick knows that can’t be everything, not with how dangerous he knows Lucifer can be, not with how scared Sam seems to be of him sometimes. Sam nods tensely and his eyes wander away from Nick to another corner of the kitchen, probably to Dean, but only for a second, because Sam still can’t take his eyes of Nick for too long. It’s quiet for a bit, Sam struggling with words again, tension rising and so Nick pushes himself up slowly, careful to give Sam his space as he rises and when he stands. “Can I help?”  
Sam is silent for a bit, looking at Dean for a bit longer this time, considering and arguing with gazes, until he finally nods. Nick moves away from the table and steps out into the hallway in front of Sam, because he knows Sam will not turn his back on him yet. Then Sam leads him to the library, calling out left or right whenever necessary, then he hands him a book and a pad of paper, before settling down himself. It’s the first time Dean is not in the same room as them and it makes Nick want to jump for joy. Or just jump Sam. But as always, patience is key, no matter how much his skin itches for more.  
“So what am I looking for?” he finally asks, cracking open the book to the front page.   
“We’re trying to look for anything that can either banish an angel from a vessel or bind Lucifer.”   
Fury flares through Nick at the last part, but he clamps down on it hard, tries to squash it immediately. He needs them to believe that he is on their side. So he starts reading as Sam does the same sitting at the other side of the table, scribbling down whatever he thinks Sam or Dean would consider helpful.


	5. Chapter 5

The day passes without problems, the peace only interrupted by Dean checking in on them a suspicious amount of times, like a worried governance that needed to protect Sammy’s innocence. Sam sometimes gets up to grab a new book and put the one he’s been reading chapters from back and Nick does the same to stretch his legs or grab a new cup of water - always offering to bring Sam one too, which Sam always declines, politely but firm - and the hours pass. He doesn’t really find anything interesting in the books Sam pushes over to his side of the table and even though they are written in English only unlike some of the books Sam seems to be reading, it’s still exhausting. It’s not only the fact that he’s never been the biggest fan of research, even when he still went to school, but the language used in some of the texts is archaic and that makes it hard to parse what is helpful and what isn’t. Thankfully that gives him an excuse to take a few breaks to just watch Sam, carefully of course, trying if anything to just seem curious and not stalkery. He sometimes catches Sam watching him too, wariness in his eyes and so they circle each other. They don’t speak and the only thing breaking the silence in the library is the flutter of pages turned and the scratch of pen on paper whenever one of them finds something interesting. He sees Sam switch between different languages, some Latin and some in a language that Nick only has Lucifer’s memories off, the rare few times he saw it during his stint as a vessel. He wonders if he could read Enochian if it came down to it. When Lucifer had possessed him, he had never really paid too much attention to it, but now curiosity makes his fingers itch. He makes a mental note of where Sam puts the book after he’s done and then gets back to his reading.  
After a few hours, shortly after Dean randomly happened by the door again, asking if they need anything and probably gleefully taking in the distance and book barrier that separates them, he downs his glass of water and looks up, fixing Sam in his gaze without any pretenses such as stretching or looking for another book that just so happens to be on the shelf behind him, before letting out a deep breath. Sam immediately puts the book down, his attention already honed in on Nick and now laser-focused. That sends a pleasant trickle down to Nick’s belly, but he manages to keep it from showing on his face. He spent long enough dancing around the topic. It’s time for him to make a move, see how it shakes out.  
“Do you…” Nick trails off, swallows hard, paints a mask of shame on his face. “When Lucifer came back I felt that… Did you…”  
Sam drops his gaze immediately, hair covering his face and again his Adam’s Apple bobs as he swallows hard. Then he nods, sharp and shaky and Nick has to fight to not reach over the table and tilt Sam’s head up, to force him to lay his terror bare. Instead he waits patiently, lets the guilt sink into Sam, hopes that Sam won’t be able to resist the urge to bond with the only person here who can maybe at least partly - but always more than anybody else on this planet - understand what he’s gone through.  
Then finally Sam speaks. “Yeah. I didn’t realize what it meant at first. When the cage was damaged-” Even though Sam doesn’t mention how or why the cage was damaged, there’s guilt thick in his voice and Nick realized that that too must have had something to do with the Winchesters and envy rages through him, only soothed by the knowledge that whatever those boneheads did, it at least finally led to the reunion of him and Lucifer in that warehouse, however short and unsatisfying it was. “Lucifer tried to get me to say yes to him. He needed a vessel, but I couldn’t… not after-” Sam chokes, the words falter and die on his lips and for a moment Nick worries he pushed Sam too far too quick, sees the way Sam is trembling, the veins in his arms standing out from how hard is is clenching his fists, but then Sam lets out a deep breath and forces himself to relax, one part of his body going a little bit laxer after the other. Then he finally continues. “He tricked Cas into saying yes instead. I only noticed when the dreams stopped that something was off, but Cas claimed that he had fixed whatever was wrong with the cage and I wanted to believe him so bad and-” Sam bites the next sentence off again and a shudder goes through him. His eyes are glassy as he lifts his gaze and Nick knows he’s probably not just staring off into the distance, but remembering.  
Nick watches him careful, documenting the tick in Sam’s jaw, the fear in Sam’s eyes, but he has to tear his inquiring eyes away from him far too soon, before an excited smile lights up his face and ruins the moment. He feels like a dehydrated man finally offered a glass of water, but he has to remind himself not to chug it too quickly or it might upset his stomach.  
Suddenly Sam smiles, a sad and defeated smile and Nick is glad he only sees it from the corner of his eyes, because it makes him want to get up, grab Sam by the collar of his shitty plaid shirt and drag him over to his side of the table and tell him that Lucifer is back and it’s still his fault and Lucifer will get him again and that no matter how long he hides in this bunker he won’t escape, especially not now that he allowed the serpent to join him in it, because he wants to see him fall apart and break, wants to drink in his pain, and it’s only the knowledge that he can’t really do what Lucifer wants from him if he’s dead or locked up forever that stops him. “Well, now Lucifer is walking the Earth again and we’ll just have to find a way to stop him somehow.”  
“I… I’m so sorry. I remember that you were friends with Castiel, but I didn’t know that he was the one, who… you know.”  
A shudder goes through Sam and a shudder goes through Nick, but Nick knows they are of different kinds. He didn’t like or trust the angel - besides feeling a little bit thankful - but that didn’t mean that Sam hadn’t. Would Sam ever be able to do that again? Perhaps not after a betrayal this deep. Hopefully never again with anybody at all when Nick is done with him. Although, if everything goes well, then Sam won’t ever have to make another decision for himself anyway, so those trust issues wouldn’t be a problem any longer.  
“It’s…” Sam breaks off again, clearly too shaken to continue and Nick forces himself to nod compassionately, urging Sam to go on. “We’ll get him back”, he finally continues, his breath shaky and Nick knows it’s unlikely that he’ll want to continue their conversation any further. And just when it got interesting… “Have you found anything interesting so far?” Sam points at his book, clearly deflecting and wanting to bury himself back in books and research again. Well, Nick will let him for now. There is after all still more time for him to worm his way under the other man’s defenses and he can’t afford to ruin this because he got greedy, wanted too much too fast.  
So he pushes his notes forward and starts pointing at the angel related things he was able to discover - a banishing symbol, which was pretty useless to them as it most likely only worked for normal angels since there was no mention of particular strength and another thing about vessels, but most of it focused on demons. Sam nods, but looks like he already expected that. Maybe he did. Of the other books, none that Nick read today truly gave him much insight into angels, most of them only skimming over their existence or claiming that they weren’t particularly active anymore, which to Nick only seems like a bad joke.  
Sam looks over his notes and his lips quirk upwards, just a bit. “Thank you, that’s really helpful”, he praises. Nick wants to scowl for a second - he’s not a damn dog - but he swallows it down. There’ll be time to show Sam his place later on. Instead he just smiles, nods and then stretches, spine popping as he finally stretches it after sitting bent over books far too long.   
“I think I need to take a break now. Will you be okay?”   
Sam nods again. “Yeah, sure. Thanks for your help.”  
Nick nods and leaves the library, mind wandering back to the fear in Sam’s eyes. Hmmm, maybe he’ll use his extra free time to imagine how exactly Sam figure out Castiel wasn’t exactly Castiel anymore… So many delicious scenarios come to mind.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: discussions of murder and canon-typical violence

The next week passes in a flurry of research spent in the library and Nick’s continued exploration of the bunker now that Sam and Dean finally let him have more of a run of the halls. He doesn’t get to see a lot just yet, doesn’t dare to veer too far of path on his walks between the bathroom, his own room, the library and the kitchen, but just getting to stretch his legs without supervision is a wonderful thing. This thing was a lot bigger and way more convoluted than he had anticipated, which is another reason Nick tries to mostly stick to the hallways he already knows. Nothing more suspicious than “I accidentally got lost while I was definitely not trying to snoop around.” Still he enjoys it, likes spending the early morning hours moving through those halls now that he could just leave his room whenever - Dean had decided not to lock his room after accompanying him there one evening - imaging that Lucifer had walked here not long ago. Sometimes he wonders if He had tried to keep Himself fully contained inside of Castiel, hiding like a snake in the undergrowth beside a path until someone let their too carefree steps lead them too close to its hiding spot, or if He sometimes let his true form shine through just a bit, branding those empty, lifeless halls with power and glory for th first time since their creation. He wonders if that’s why Sam walks them too in the middle of the night - Nick has started to sleep a bit, knows he needs it to keep up appearances, but he still keeps his ears open and Sam walks quietly, but Nick still sometimes hears someone pitter-patter through the bunker late at night and sure it may be Dean, but Dean isn’t the one who looks more and more tired as the days go on (even though he also doesn’t look like he sleeps well) - pushed by the urge to feel (or in Sam’s case maybe not feel) His grace. If Sam shares that with him, did he also miss it sometimes? Maybe not as much as Nick did - no one could miss it that much, a hole carved where none was supposed to be, his being torn apart to fit something so much bigger inside and then to have that ripped away, leaving an empty space, deflating and collapsing and forever hollow - but perhaps just a bit, somewhere buried under all that fear and self-righteousness, this hunger that once fed never stops gnawing. Maybe it had to do with the thing Lucifer had talked about when he grew frustrated and love sick. That Sam had always felt it, having been created with Lucifer in mind, formed, made and bred and raised for him specifically. Maybe Sam learned to live with it, this constant empty ache accompanying him his entire life. Maybe that was how he had managed to thrown it all away in the end, having already been nursed on the feeling before he could even speak.  
Today Nick gets ready for another day of fruitless, useless research - he hasn’t been able to find anything even remotely useful for their purposes, but somehow Sam doesn’t seem to mind. He just puts another bundle of books in front of Nick and Nick dutifully starts leafing through them as well. He’s already gotten faster in the few days he’s been here, his mind getting used to skimming over whole paragraphs again and still somehow taking in what the text was about and then able to focus on things that actually seem interesting. He keeps a lookout for mentions of angels, possessions and any banishing or binding rituals, but as nearly every other day he only finds a handful of most likely useless references.  
At the end of the day, he pushes the books away and stretches, once again leering over to Sam’s side. He’s reading and when Nick squints he can make out terms like “darkness” and “cage” and “mark” in Sam’s messy handwriting, but Sam is always quick to cover it by moving just unobtrusively enough that if Nick wasn’t trying to spy on him, he would probably not notice. It makes it impossible for Nick to call any attention to it without being suspicious either. So instead he straightens and pushes his own piece of paper towards Sam.  
“Here, I found another binding spell, but it doesn’t sound particularly powerful.”  
Sam quickly looks over his sheet and nods approvingly. “It looks good. Thank you.” He sounds truly happy, but something about his voice is off, less tight… hopeful even? But not surprised or intrigued in what’s written on the paper at all. A dark thought enters Nick’s mind. Those past few days that he’s been researching, there hadn’t been a lot of useful information here, and nothing had even seemed to be news to Sam. Of course there’s the possibility that Sam already knew a lot from his life as hunter, or maybe was just hoping that a fresh set of eyes could find something more interesting… Or maybe that wasn’t it at all.  
“Do you have any more books about angels here? I haven’t really been able to find anything useful in the ones you gave me so far.”  
Sam nods and hums, refocusing on his own work as his eyes move across the lines. “Yeah, unfortunately the men of letters don’t have that much on angels, they weren’t really active during their time and a lot of the lore is kinda… outdated. It’s hard to find anything, but sometimes you discover some gems.” He tries to smile encouragingly and it somehow only makes Nick angrier.  
“Is there maybe something that could be more helpful?” For a second Sam looks slightly guilty and that’s all the confirmation Nick needs. Not that he doesn’t understand it - they still have no reason to fully trust him and so giving him some research to do where they know what’s written in the books, so he can’t fuck them over, is smart - but it still stings. He’s also getting bored and he knows that could make him do something stupid. He needs something else to occupy his time, but research, reading, exploring the bunker and daydreaming about the day where he finally gets to break Sam is simply not enough. Not when he knows Lucifer is out there and every day he takes longer with his mission is another day separated from Him.  
But he’s also noticed that Sam and Dean seem to be getting more and more antsy as the days pass, always looking over the news and trying to find something, anything. Dean has been calling around a lot, walking around taking quietly into his phone more often than not currently, but neither of them has told him what this is about. He doesn’t think it’s just Lucifer, but in the end it’s not his problem. If it was, he’s sure he’d have gotten a warning. He has a job to do and he should just buckle down and concentrate on that.  
“How about we take a break for tonight? I mean… When was the last time you had a nice evening for yourself?” Nick wants to scowl and howl that it’s been way too many, but he forces the anger down again. It feels like acid in his throat.  
“Alright. If you’re sure I can’t help any more?” Sam averts his eyes and then shakes his head. “Well, then good night.” Damned liars. But patience. It’s a virtue. One that Nick seemingly possesses a lot less of than he thought he did.  
He holes up in his room and watches one of the movies Sam put on a laptop for him to watch. Considering he’s still in the big open warded room without a toilet near, living here is actually not that bad. He has to admit that the food’s good and Dean is actually a really good cook - he loves Bacon maybe a little bit too much, but it could be worse -, the library is interesting, the showers always have warm water, he’s got books and movies and sometimes relatively good conversation and he’s here rent free. If he wasn’t working all the time, he might even find some time to enjoy himself. And that’s where the crux of it all lies. He’s not friends with the Winchesters. He’d never be friends with them if it wasn’t for this and so everything that would be easy for someone with a clean conscience becomes a chore for Nick. And it’s surprisingly exhausting to see how slowly everything moves.  
Maybe that’s the reason he can’t help but call out for Lucifer in his mind before he falls asleep, frustration over the slow progress of his work gnawing at him. Unlike the many times he did so before - before he could feel Lucifer’s grace singing in the air around him with the knowledge that he is back, walking amongst them - Lucifer answers. He appears in his dream, red eyes glowing in Castiel’s face as he waits for Nick to plead his case.  
Nick does, falls to his knees and prays. “I require some assistance. I don’t know how to prove myself to the Winchesters if I can’t show them that I’m on their side. I need something to fight.”  
Lucifer smiles, grace pulsing out of the dream vessel he’s using right now, showing Nick just the tiniest bit of himself. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. “I can provide that for you. Now sleep, you’ll need your strength.”  
Then suddenly Lucifer is gone again and Nick falls into a deeper, more satisfied sleep than he had since he arrived here, even though with the dream visit’s interruption it wasn’t what he would consider a good night’s sleep.  
The next day, Sam finally allows him access to some much more interesting books, newer books that don’t seem to come from the Bunker’s old library and while not necessarily that helpful, they are a lot more interesting than the other books Nick read so far. The fact that they had left him drudge through the men of letter’s old texts with their way too tiny script and their annoying language and phrasings for what amounts to nothing still rankles a bit, but he forces himself to calm down. Lucifer promised his help. Whatever it is, Nick knows it’s going to be good.  
Many of the books he reads are still not about angels, but a lot more focused on magic and a variety of rituals and so he writes down notes for anything that could be helpful with references to the books and the pages he found the information on, in case Sam wants to check his research later on. For a moment Nick thinks about just switching out some numbers, an easy mistake to make and really annoying if Sam needed extra information, but then decides against it. For now he has no reason to be so vindictive. He’d find another way to entertain himself soon.  
Lucifer doesn’t visit him again this night and even though Nick expected it, the closeness he had shared for just a moment with Lucifer left him thirsty for more. He wakes up teary eyed from frustration in the middle of the night and angrily wipes as his eyes. He’s a fully grown man. He can handle this waiting game. But god almighty, he doesn’t want to.  
The next morning, he is finally rewarded for his patience. As he walks up to the kitchen again, creeping as always just in case, he hears voices from the main hall. He continues further down the hallway, only daring to go near enough that he can hear them relatively well. It’s not perfect, but neither would be discovery, so he stays.  
“You don’t think this is suspicious?” Dean arguing again… As always. Nick rolls his eyes.  
“Of course it’s suspicious. It’s most likely a trap to lure us out of the bunker. But I still think he deserves to know.” Sam’s voice is tight and without the anger that fills every one of Dean’s words. Instead he simply sounds insistent, as if he already made up his mind and doesn’t much care for Dean’s input. Nick smirks at that. Sam and his constant belief in free will and informed choices… it would be cute really, if it wasn’t so damn inconvenient.  
Sam drops his voice and Nick inches closer to the door, now needy to hear that they mean. “You heard what Jody described… It sounds exactly like what happened to him. We should at least give him the choice.”  
“If this is a trap, I’m kicking both of your asses”, Dean grumbles, but Nick can clearly picture the glow of Sam’s smile, that desperate for approval puppy face. It’s as good as a concession as Sam is likely to get and that means they will soon be walking through the hallways again and Nick better be gone by then. He quickly hurries back down the hallway and into the kitchen, grabbing a cup of coffee, before settling in his usual spot again. It’s still steaming and way too hot to drink by the time Sam arrives in the kitchen as well, his eyes fixing on Nick the moment he spots him.  
For a few beats he doesn’t say anything, simply refills the cup he’s holding and then finally he turns towards Nick again. “So, you know, my brother and me we’re hunters. You understand what that entails right?”  
Nick hums in agreement. “I mean, I know you’re not just looking for ways to defeat Lucifer again, you’re taking care of a lot more monsters out there that prey on humans. So yeah, I kinda know what you’re doing, but why are you asking?”  
Sam nods, satisfied. “A fellow hunter brought a case to our attention. She heard about a murder and told us about it since we’re pretty close by. It’s…” Sam breaks off and swallows hard. “It’s kinda similar to what happened to you actually. A home invasion, wife and child murdered, husband wakes up from the screams but he’s too late. He gets into the room to find a blood bath, calls 911, they think he did it at first because the doors were locked, but security tapes prove his innocence, cause there’s two people sneaking out of his house. And while they haven’t been able to find the people identified, neither of them have a history of violence. We’d drive out there, check out the crime scene, look for sulfur just to be safe. It might be Lucifer’s looking for another vessel. Or it might be a trap. Either way, we have to make sure, so Dean and me, we’d go. You can stay here or you can come with us.”  
Nick doesn’t waste any time, puts his cup down and surges up, layering anger and indignation over the surprise that threatens to overtake him. “Of course I’m coming. If I… If I can prevent some other poor bastard going down the same road I went down… I’d do anything.” The lie flows easily, but it also feels bitter and Nick has to fight not to let that show. Or maybe that’s just because of the jealously raging in his stomach. He knows that this is probably Lucifer’s doing and the thing that’s supposed to help Nick, but it doesn’t help soothe the pang that Nick feels at the idea of Lucifer taking yet another vessel that’s not him.  
Sam seems as if he’d been expecting this reaction, because he simply nods and sighs.  
“So… how well can you hold your own in a fight? And how much do you know about demons?”  
Nick answers truthfully here - not very well and quite a lot, mostly negatives. As much as Lucifer liked to use demons, he didn’t think particularly highly of them - and Sam takes it in stride.   
“Ok. Dean and me will do the investigation if that’s okay for you. We just don’t have any fake IDs for you yet and it’s never a good idea to use your actual name in our line of work when you come in contact with the law enforcement.”  
Nick remembers about all the times he read and heard about the Winchesters dying and returning to the public eye with another horrific crime spree, so he knows Sam isn’t wrong here. If any cop found out about their real names during an investigation, they would be rotting in a cell faster than they could scream for the other. His name isn’t as tainted, but he still prefers not to think about his past.  
“That’s fine. I guess, I can stay behind then and… do research during those parts?”  
Sam nods and quirks his lips upward, relaxing slightly at Nick’s suggestion. “That sounds like a plan. We’re leaving in an hour, so I hope you can pack quick.”  
With that Sam stands and marches out of the room again. Nick quickly downs his cup of coffee and then rushes to his room. It’s not like he has a lot to pack, but he uses the extra time to send out a short prayer of thanks to Lucifer and he’s not sure if the rustle of wings he hears and the cold breeze he feels against his cheek is real or just his imagination, but he still smiles as he zips up his bag and walks to the living room, where Sam and Dean are already waiting.  
Dean’s arms are folded and his stance is broad and steady, making him look like a massively pissed off security guard. He still doesn’t seem to like this idea, so Nick turns towards Sam when he speaks, ignoring Dean’s eyes boring into him. “Okay, I’ve got everything.”  
Dean turns away and starts walking briskly out of the room. Sam is waiting for Nick to move and so Nick quickly follows, getting into position between the Winchester sandwich. He fights down the spring in his step, knowing that Sam is watching him carefully, but his heart is soaring with happiness. He hasn’t left the bunker in a bit over a week now and he’s kinda excited to get back out there. Maybe he can also pick up some clothes along the way. Dean had gone shopping along the way, but it had all been cheap v-neck t-shirts and some flannel, probably from Redneck Official or wherever they got their supplies. And while Nick can appreciate the attempt that has been made, he hates wearing those clothes. Yes, it was his work outfit, but seriously? All that flannel was going to suffocate him at some point. Maybe he could get himself a nice white cotton shirt that’s not blood stained somewhere during this trip... He’ll probably have to convince one of them to come along probably, as it’s unlikely they’ll leave him out of their sights for long as soon as they get out of the bunker. His excitement dampers out a bit at the idea of having to go on a shopping trip with them… although remembering how Sam flew from him the moment he touched the buttons on his shirt, he could certainly still have a little bit of fun even if Dean glared daggers at him with every move he made.  
Dean leads them further through the bunker’s hallway into a big garage, that Nick hasn’t seen before. For a moment he’s overwhelmed by all the cars and motorcycles that are stored in here. He hadn’t expected the Winchester’s to have a damn fleet down here, but he can see at least 10 different vehicles, many of them rather old models, but also in good shape. Sam notices him gaping and for the first time since Nick is here a true smile appears on his face.  
“Impressive, isn’t it? Dean fixes them up when he has the time.”  
Even Dean can’t fight down a grin at Nick’s not at all concealed awe. It might be the first real strong emotion he’s shown them since he’s here and they must feel that. For a moment Nick wants to kick himself for loosing his composure like that - he’s not a professional, but he’s supposed to act like one at the very least, he’s had plenty of time to try out and test and develop many masks for him to wear - but then Sam gives him a soft push forward, nudging him towards a black car that’s definitely a lot more shinier than the other cars. For a moment Nick struggles with his memories - all that grace and time passed doesn’t make it easy to sort through what he saw during his possession - but then he remembers. That’s the Winchester’s car. The one that they drove to the graveyard with when Lucifer had been raising Death… The time they shot him in the head with that fancy gun of theirs. Back then Lucifer hadn’t really cared about protecting him yet, had simply pushed him down and barely ever listened to him.   
He remembers the bullet breaking through his forehead and burrowing itself into his brain, he remembers the moment when Lucifer had let himself crumble, laughing all the way down as he forced a pretty light show to entertain the boys. Then he had magicked the bullet away, healed the wound and gotten back up with a smile. Lucifer hadn’t asked him how he was doing then, not once. But he also remembers the way Lucifer had made sure his body was fine, even going a little bit further than necessary, healing some minor brain damage he had acquired during a fall that left him concussed years before the actual possession. Lucifer hadn’t particularly listened or cared for him back then, busy with doing everything he could to start the apocalypse, but that kindness had made Nick try harder to talk with him and interact with him, until Lucifer had finally started replying, listening to him, discussing with him. Looking at it this way, turns out he has to thank the Winchesters for a lot more than they know.  
The atmosphere in the impala is not a particularly good one. Dean seems anxious to have Nick at his back and keeps glancing at him through the rear view mirror, his eyes still cold despite the days they spent in the bunker together. Now of course, they haven’t really talked much, Dean deciding to give him and Sam space for their research in the bunker, while he’s doing something else - maybe scoping out hunts, or whatever it is that hunters actually do, besides killing things -, so Nick can’t fault him, but it still smarts a bit. Well, if everything goes according to plan tonight, then he might be able to win their trust just a little. Watching Dean fidget while on the wheel is not really something that fills him with calm though. It just adds to the base anxiety that’s been running through him ever since Sam told him what this whole thing was actually about. He has to admit that it was an interesting route to take and it certainly ensured that they would take Nick with them - Sam would never deny him a chance at revenge, not when it comes to family and even Dean can understand this - but it doesn’t make Nick any less nervous. He’s not a hunter. Before his wife, he had rarely ever brandished a knife anywhere besides the kitchen and even now he’s not exactly proficient in any type of weaponry unless the bat he used to knock his sacrifices out counts. But a bat is not going to help him against demons and Nick desperately hopes that Lucifer instructed them not to actually hurt him. And that the demons are smart enough to not give him away, if he has to kill them. He forces himself out of his thoughts and tears his eyes from Dean’s fingers tapping against the steering wheel. The rhythm is just irregular enough to set him on edge when it hasn’t been so before and as he drags his gaze up to Dean’s face in the mirror, the bastard actually smirks at him. Maybe Nick will just push him to the demons during this hunt for a evening of fun, games and torture, see how much he’ll like to tease Nick then. He grits his teeth and looks over to Sam, who’s sitting in his seat quietly and stiffly and his eyes rest on Nick in the rear view mirror without ever moving away from him. They are no longer afraid, nor particularly interested, just cold and detached and watching, making sure Nick doesn’t try anything stupid.  
Fine, Nick thinks and leans back in his seat with a huff. He’s got patience and a plan. If everything goes well, the drive home will be a lot more relaxed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: murder, short description of planned suicide attempt (non-graphic), violence

At first things seem to be going well. They arrive at the motel, check in and while Sam and Dean suit up - and Sam does look quite good in a suit, but somehow Nick is sure a white one would fit him even better - Nick visits the bathroom and takes care of bodily functions. Nick will stay back, while the Winchester’s investigate - one hand cuffed to the radiator just in case and at least Dean has the good graces to look apologetic as he snaps the cuffs shut - researching demon possession and the killings of a wife and baby and what blood rituals can be done with their sacrifice. Of course, Nick knows all that, learned it from Lucifer, who had visited him each night, answering his every question until Nick’s curiosity was sated and he felt ready to take the knife to his wife’s throat. He had killed the baby after, quick and mercilessly. Back then he hadn’t yet had such refined tastes for torture as he had now. He had had to learn this from Lucifer, the true pain that could be inflicted both physical and mental. For a while he commiserates on that, mourning the missed opportunity - would his vessel have been stronger if he had made them suffer more? If he had killed his baby first, made her watch, drenched her in their son’s blood until the whole room stank like fear and terror, blood and piss. Could he have held Him longer then? - but he quickly banishes the thoughts from his brain. He doesn’t know how long Sam and Dean will be out, and him sitting here not having moved because he was too busy fantasizing would look at least a little bit suspicious. So he decides to go through the books they brought him, writes down some of the things he knows - things he assumes could be in the books based on headers of chapters and sub chapters in case Sam wants to check on them too, not willing to put the work in that’d be required to actually read any of it - and places them in a different order than they had been put down next to him. By the time he’s done with that, a car pulls into the motel’s parking lot and he hopes it’s the Impala. This waiting around, pretending to do research, is a lot more boring that he thought it would be. Especially when he’s got a much more important job to do. But then, thankfully the door opens and Sam and Dean return, Dean with two bags of fast food in his hands.  
“Found anything?” Sam asks as he comes over to him and unlocks the handcuff. Nick rubs his wrist while he nods. Then he hands Sam his notes and looks at him expectantly.   
“Some. It might be some kind of family blood ritual or something powered by the husband’s grief. And you?” He saunters over to the table and Sam follows, leaning against it as he reads through Nick’s notes.  
Dean swallows down his bite of burger and replies for him. “Well, the husband was not available and we missed him at the bar he always goes to, so for now we’ll have to wait until he comes back. But according to the neighbors, he’s pretty distraught, so the grief thing could work. The blood ritual not so much. At least as long as it relies on actual blood relation. Little Vicki was adopted, a lovely addition to a lovely family. No one can imagine what monster could have done it. The husband was lucky that he had surveillance cameras or they’d probably try to put him away for the murder even without any actual proof, just to have somebody to punish. Really disturbed everyone here in this quaint sleepy town and they’re out for blood. It’s definitely demonic in origin, the stench of sulfur was all over the place.”  
“So, how are we gonna stop those demons from ruining more families?” Nick inquires, only barely able to hide his excitement and hoping it will be read as determination instead. Of course Lucifer isn’t trying to replace him, he’s just giving him something to work with. He can finally breathe right again.  
“We’re gonna stake out the house. You told us Lucifer visited you to manipulate you into saying yes. If that’s the game he’s playing, he’ll have to get close to him somehow”, Sam says, putting the paper down on the table.  
“I wanna come with. If there’s a way to keep this man from going through more of the same hell I’ve been through, I have to be there.” This does not come out quite as forceful as Nick wants it too, still floating on endorphins now that his gnawing fear of Lucifer replacing him has finally settled, but the boys seem to buy it because they nod and then Sam is tossing him a small bag. It contains a new change of clothes, dark shirt and dark jeans, suited for the job of making him blend in on a stake out.  
“Go get ready, we’ll set everything up after. And… make sure you hit the John, we won’t have time for potty breaks later”, Dean instructs and pulls off his suit jacket and starts loosening his tie. Despite their attempts to seem casual, Nick can see that they are unsettled being in such close quarters with him and so he hurriedly withdraws into the bathroom, not wanting to make them suspicious. When Nick comes back out, not even trying to be quiet and sneaky this time because he knows he wouldn’t have gotten too far with that strategy, they are both much too attuned to him at the moment, they’ve changed out of their shirts, replacing them with dark-colored flannels, Sam’s green, Dean’s blue, but they are still wearing their suit pants. Sam heads into the bathroom first, shoulder’s nearly as tense as they had been when he had first met Nick again and even Dean is a lot more tense than he has been in a while. But of course, that is Nick’s first day in the wild in… well, quite some time.  
Nick leans against the table, tugging at the sleeve of his new shirt - it’s actually new, not just a hand-me-down from Dean he hadn’t seen before, but probably just bought a little while ago - and it fits him much better than anything Dean had been supplying him with. Dean doesn’t look at him, instead riffling through his duffel, metal clanking against metal as he does so. He seems to be switching things between this duffel and Sam’s and even though he’s probably just preparing for the stake out, it’s still intriguing Nick. He’s never gotten so see them in action.  
“What’s all this for?” he finally asks and Dean hesitates for a second, his hand clutching a wicked looking knife as he stops in the motion of moving it.  
It’s quiet while Dean looks up, eying him warily, before he lets out a deep sigh. “It’s your first hunt, of course you don’t…” A sigh, then a tense nod. “Well, most of those things aren’t really things you’ll ever have to concern yourself with. Most likely and certainly not tonight. There’s a lot more that goes bump in the night than demons and angels, so we like to come prepared. Now that we know what we’re most likely dealing with, we can pack a bit lighter. It’s easier that way.”  
Nick nods, showing that he understands, but before he can ask anything else, the door from the bathroom opens and Sam steps out, immediately beelining to the duffel bags. Dean hands him the knife and Sam continues the work of switching them out. Then with a last lingering look to Sam, Dean hurries into the bathroom, probably preparing for a speedy clothes change, maybe even aiming to break the world record.  
“Do you… do you know how to kill a demon?” Sam asks after the door closes, his voice tense and Nick can barely suppress a surprised laugh.  
“I know angels can kill most of them. Lucifer… He killed quite a few. His blade also worked against them, but He rarely used it. He enjoyed a more… physical approach when he decided not to use his powers.” Sam grimaces slightly and for a moment Nick wonders who Lucifer had him tear apart. Did he still feel their guts splattered over his hands sometimes, the warmth as he buried his fingers deep in them and tore until there was nothing left? Nick certainly did. “How about you? I mean holy water doesn’t exactly kill a demon, angel blades are hard to get and exorcisms sound like a lot of work. There has to be a more efficient way, right?”  
For a moment Sam’s lips quirk upwards, but there’s also pain in his eyes as if he’s remembering something unpleasant. “There’s a few ways to kill a demon, some magic, some weapons, and even some creatures. Problem is most of them kill the vessel as well as the demon. Sometimes if possible we can exorcise them, but…” Sam frowns, clearly unhappy and caught in some dark memories. “Demons aren’t exactly careful with their meat suits most of the time and… a lot of those times it’s too late for them… But still, it’s a good way to go. You might have read about one of the exorcisms before, it’s never bad to know one in case you need one.”   
“You can teach him the perfect Latin pronunciation later, we’ll need something to entertain us during the stake out anyway”, Dean interrupts as he comes back out of the bathroom, his clothes slightly rumpled from how quickly he dressed. He folds his suit over a chair and straightens with a determined look on his face. “We’ll have to find a spot with a good view, so we should get going.”  
Sam nods and after a short stop in a fast food chain, they are parked in front of the family’s house, well, now the husband’s. The Jeffersons, white middle class, Daddy Dave, Mummy Pam, baby daughter Vicki and an adorable cat that used to always sit on their window sill, gazing outside, probably fantasizing about the ways it would tear apart the starlings that tweet in the hedge. Now, just the father and the cat are left, the blinds are constantly drawn and when the father finally comes home, he’s carrying a bottle that clinks as he walks. Probably hard liquor if his slightly wobbly gate has anything to do with it.  
While he was gone, Dean snuck into his bedroom, hiding a coin that lets them listen in to what happens in the room. Not that it will help very much, but it might give them a head up if the husband suddenly starts having terrible nightmares. As they are waiting for nightfall, Sam has Nick repeat Latin until he stopped stumbling over the pronunciation and can get through most of it without a problem. Not that he’s planning on using it. Killing a demon might be the only option Nick has to feel blood flow down his hands for a while now and he desperately wants it. All that chit-chat and playing nice with the Winchesters leaved him quite pent up with frustration - having to pick and chose every word carefully is more exhausting than he expected - and he’s itching for at least a little bit of release. He keeps twirling the angel blade Sam gave him, feelings its weight in his hands. It feels different than Lucifer’s, lighter somehow and balanced a little bit differently, but all in all it’s okay. He’ll be able to bury it in a demon’s chest either way.  
For a while it’s calm, the house silent beside a TV blasting loud enough to mostly cover the father’s sobs. After the TV finally shuts off at around 2am, it doesn’t take long after until muttering can be heard over the coin, moans of no, Pam, Vicki, please don’t. Sam, Dean and Nick slide out of the Impala, carefully closing the doors behind them and hurry over the street to the house. But before they reach the door, a figure peels out of the shadows and hurries towards them. Dean is on it in a second, quickly pushing the creature off the street into the alley behind the house and when he presses it against the wall, demon killing blade against its throat, the demon grins as it lets its eyes flash black. Its grin is cocky and even with its eyes fully black, Nick can’t fight the feeling that it’s mocking him. He wishes he could still just grab it and squeeze until its head fractures, burying his fingers in its brain matter. But without Lucifer he is not strong enough, so he’ll have to settle for the knife.  
“Hello boys. It’s great to see you again.” The demon smiles even bigger through a hiss when Dean pushes the knife across its throat, nicking the skin. After that Nick can’t hear the words they are exchanging, blood rushing in his ears and he hasn’t felt this alive in a long while. He isn’t sure who he wants to tear apart first, the demon or Dean as he’s slowly reaching for the angel killing knife in his jacket pocket. Suddenly Sam goes flying through the air, slamming into a dumpster with a pained grunt and the other demon uses Dean’s momentary distraction to punch him in the face and pin him, knife clattering to the ground. Nick is also forced backwards, but his fall is cushioned by the same demon powers that caused it in the first place.  
“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy”, the second demon says as it walks over to him and buries its hand in his hair to force him to look at it. Nick’s hand is itching to do the same, but instead he forces himself to stay with the mission. “We all heard that you miss Lucifer, but it’s still cute to see you come running the second he shows his face anywhere.” The other demon is holding Dean pinned against the wall and grins as it hears the other taunt Sam, while Dean is scowling and trashing against the demon holding him down. “But Sammy, you know… You missed your window. Lucifer? He doesn’t want you anymore. He wants to defeat the Darkness, rule hell and then heaven and then earth, and now that He doesn’t need you for that, He’s just not that into you anymore. Of course, he’s normally not one to go for sloppy seconds, but He said to let you know you that Cassie is so nice and snug and thanks to all that extra grace more than strong enough. But enough chit-chat. You’re here now and no longer holed up in that graphite cage of yours and that makes my job of finally ending your sad, depressing existence so much easier.” Then the demon releases Sam’s hair, letting his head bounce against the asphalt before it straddles his chest and places its hands around his throat. “I’m going to enjoy watching you die”, it smiles and Dean screams, while Sam is struggling against the grip on his throat, arms pinned under the demon’s knees and hands flailing uselessly. As much as Nick thought he’d enjoy watching Sam like this - and he still does, for just a minute it was nice to see Sam forced into submission like this, forced to take anything the demon wants to do to him - something pangs through his chest painfully at the sight. Despite everything Sam fucked up and despite his stupid brokenness and all his caring and self loathing and martyr act, seeing him like this is not as satisfying as Nick had expected. Instead it makes something angry and ugly raise its head in his chest and even though Nick had planned to let the demons get a few more licks in, he rushes forward and drives the blade through the demons chest. It doesn’t even have time to look betrayed before it tumbles off Sam, host and demon dying in a flash. Before Nick can fully take in the sight of Sam sprawled out on the ground in front of him, he hears an angry growl behind him, the other demon rushing towards him with anger blazing in its eyes. Lucifer must have promised them a little bit of fun with Sam and Dean, some rough housing as pay before they sacrificed themselves for the greater good, but Nick doesn’t care. He knows his mission ranks higher than anything a little part time demon could ever hope to be assigned. They are on the bottom of the food chain and even as pissed off as this demon is, Nick suspects it wouldn’t be stupid enough to actually kill him. Lucifer would make sure it suffered worse than even Lilith, his first that he had to take a lot of aggression out on, could imagine and the demon seems to know it too. When it swings at Nick, it hesitates for a heartbeat, giving him more than enough time to duck out of the way, knife cutting air instead of flesh and before it can swing again, Nick stabs upwards, skewering the demon on his sword and it slumps down. Nick is covered in warm, fresh blood and arousal is thrumming through his veins. This was so much better than he imagined. The sacrifice had been good, but this? Pure destruction for destructions sake and the way Sam draws in a sharp breath behind him, letting Nick picture the fear in his eyes, it’s exhilarating. He drops the body, stumbles back and sinks to the ground beside Sam, who has managed to crawl away from the bleeding corpse and is pulling himself into a sitting position against the wall.  
“Are you okay?” Nick asks.  
“Yeah, yeah I will be. Thanks to you.” There’s wonder and terror in Sam’s voice, which is a lot more gravely than it was before. Nick can’t wait for the purple bruised necklace to bloom on Sam’s neck and for a moment he doesn’t think and reaches out, hovering his finger just mere inches away from Sam’s exposed, vulnerable skin. Sam freezes, breaths growing more labored as he’s staring at Nick’s blood covered hand, but he doesn’t move away, probably can’t do it, beaten and bruised and exhausted and Nick takes all that in, enjoys it for a second and then he drops his hand and lets concern flood his face.  
“That’s going to bruise bad.”  
Sam relaxes, some of the tension draining out of him as Nick moves back slightly. “Yeah it will. But that means it will also heal”, he mumbles and then tries to get up, stagger to were Dean is still slumped against the ground from when the demon knocked his head into the wall. He’s shaky, but manages and then he drops down beside his brother, knees hitting the puddle of demon blood and Nick wants to cut the demon’s body up further, pour it over Sam until he’s drenched in it, drown him until he’s choking on the vile substance.   
Sam looks so much better in red.  
Dean’s still breathing and then his eye lids flutter and then he wakes up. For a second Nick feels disappointment flare in his belly, but he knows Dean dying would really mess up his plan. So instead he slumps against the wall, while Sam smiles relieved and works on getting his brother up. Somehow they manage to do it together, pulling up and dragging down until they are a four-legged, two-headed wobbly creature in a relatively vertikal position. Nick collects the knives and after Sam asks him to, he drags the bodies behind a dumpster to pick up later and burn them. They wobble to the door and Dean keeps drifting to the side, nearly toppling them twice, but Nick had been there to catch Sam. Sam, who had still tensed and his arm had started to twitch when Nick’s hands fastened around his biceps, but who otherwise hadn’t been able to escape, not with Dean’s weight pressing down on him, not if he didn’t want to rear back, stumble and rip Dean down with him and Nick has sent a quick prayer of thanks for Lucifer for it. They finally make it to the door after what feels like an eternity in heaven for Nick, Sam’s heartbeat a panicked bird flutter against his palm. Dean leans against the wall, freeing Sam, who immediately pushes forward, closer to the door, pulling out some lock picks as he puts as much space between them as the small patio allows.   
Nick doesn’t step back, but he changes positions, hovers closer to Dean than he does to Sam, just in case they’re checking, just to reassure them if they think Nick is hogging Sam, because of course he isn’t, he’s just trying to help (and in some way he actually is. Just not in a way Sam would understand) and both of them relax visibly.   
Sam finally gets the door open and they stumble inside, Dean clutching to the wall and it’s clear that he won’t be any good in a fight now, not disoriented as he is, but he’s still holding a knife in his hand, blade pointed outward and trying to look very intimidating. In the end they don’t get far anyway. Despite the late hour, somebody is standing in the hallway, waiting, shotgun glistening in the dark as it’s cocked and pointed at them. “Are you back to kill me too? Well, go ahead then. Just finish it this time”, the person calls out and his trembling hand is reaching for the light switch beside him. “But if you do, I’ve got camera’s pointed at every entrance. They will find you, they will-” he trails off as soon as he manages to flick on the lights, jaw slack and eyes fixed on Sam. “It’s you. He said you would come. He said…” The man’s hand shake and for a moment his trigger finger twitches hard enough to make all of them flinch, expecting a shot to ring out, but nothing happens. Instead the man lowers the gun and stumbles back. “He said it’s your fault. That he killed them, so you would come. That if I wanted to ever see them again, I knew what to do. But Pam… she wouldn’t want me to… not this.”  
The gun clatters to the ground and Sam is frozen for a long moment. When he lets out a breath, it stutters, catches on his wobbling lips. “I am… I am so sorry.” Bleeding heart in a blood covered body and Nick wants to punch him for showing so much weakness, but he’s interested in what else Dave has to say, the plan Lucifer had devised, so he keeps quiet and even stops himself from rolling his eyes.  
For a moment Dave looks angry, spits out a “Sorry won’t bring them back to me”, before his face crumbles again and he curls up further. “He said you might be dead before you get here. He had the people who killed my wife, who… who slaughtered my daughter wait for you. He said that was his gift to me and I caught them yesterday and shot them, but they just kept on moving, laughed at me even. So I gave up. But obviously they haven’t killed you and I can’t kill you either, so…” His hand reaches for the gun again, defeat radiating in the twitch of his hand, but Sam shoots forward, grabs the barrel and holds it down, even as the man’s finger reaches for the trigger. “Let go. I just… I need this to be over. I can’t… Please.”  
“No, listen to me. What happened to your wife and kid… I am so sorry. Losing people… it’s hell. And I can’t bring them back and… He won’t. Not in a manner you would like. But there is another way for you. We can help you. You’ll have to move, change your name, start over somewhere new and as someone else, but… I think he got what he wanted already. He should leave you alone now, but… if you wanna be safe, there’s a few more steps you can take.” Then Sam starts about demon traps, anti possession tattoos, the tattoo Castiel used to keep himself warded from angels when he was human (and Nick hadn’t known something like this existed, but he knew that Castiel had warded the Winchesters with carvings in their ribs, remembered Lucifer’s ice cold fury when he had been unable to locate them except in their dreams and also only Sam, drawing on some sacred bond that existed between them and that had been one of the first times Nick had felt jealousy claw at him. Even the memory is enough to make him tighten his grip on the angel blade) and other things. The anger dissipates as quickly as it had spiked and Nick drifts to the side again as exhaustion finally starts to take its toll. He hadn’t slept well in the car, too exited for what was to come and now as the adrenaline starts to fade he can feel the tiredness pull at him. Dean has sunken onto a chair, eyes unfocused and blinking lazily, adrenaline fading now that everything seems to be okay, and while it had been some time since Nick had witnessed a concussion - longer still that he cared if somebody had one, because back then it had been him giving them to people, back when Lucifer had first left and he had been locked up and sometimes he had fought the nurses and then the guards because he was so empty and he hoped to fill that void with blood and guts, but they had been too quick, restrained him before he could get more than a couple hits in and the doctors had thought making him face the consequences of his actions might help and of course, it hadn’t, but he had soon learned to pretend - he could still recognize one and so he saunters over to the table and drags his own chair up beside Dean.  
“Hey, uh, you might want to try to stay focused, I think you could have a concussion”, he begins and Dean scowls at him.  
“You think so, Genius? Where’d you get your PhD from? The university of Obvious, California?” The words have barely any bite behind them and if Nick cared, he might be worried. Sam must have heard them, because he stopped his conversation with the father and is looking at them with that sad, troubled look he gets, his forehead all scrounged up and it makes bile rise in Nick’s throat. Lucifer’s vessel should not be this pathetic.  
But Nick knows, he can’t underestimate the brothers’ bond. After all it is what allowed Sam to overpower Lucifer that first time. So he turns back towards Dean and shrugs. “I’m just checking if you’re fit to drive. No need to be a dick about it.” Dean scowls harder at that but doesn’t retort, because that’s when Sam speaks up louder, tells Dave to stay strong and call them if he needs any more help. Nick offers his support for Dean, who flinches back. “Thanks, but I can walk by myself.” Proving himself a liar, Dean tries to get up and stumbles immediately as a wave of nausea rolls through him. Then Sam is by his side and holds him again.   
“We should get out of here.”  
Dean nods and winces and then they start moving towards the door. “What about him?” Dean asks.  
“I sent him the PDFs of all the necessary warding tattoos and I helped him find a parlor near here. He’ll be fine. No demon will be able to possess him, no angel able to track him after he gets them. It should keep him safe.”  
Nick freezes. While this guy might not be useful in a way that matters, after all he was nothing but a little pawn in Lucifer’s greater picture, Nick has also learned to never loose sight of an asset, no matter how insignificant it looked. Lucifer had said it had been a dumb little toy soldier that gave Sam the strength to fight him and Nick wouldn’t let anything like that stand in the way again. “I’ll have to go for little hunters real quick.” He turns towards Dave and asks him where the bathroom is.  
The man’s still crumbled to the floor, gun uselessly beside him, but he straighten a bit, points down a hallway. “Third door on the left.” His voice is flat, but there’s a strain in it too, that shows Nick how close he is to losing his composure. He’s probably minutes away from starting to cry and throw himself on the floor like a toddler. And Nick really doesn’t want to see that. So he nods and hurries down the hallway. As Nick hoped it’s a toilet combined with a bathroom and there’s a hairbrush on the sink. He picks a few hairs, wraps them securely inside a piece of toilet paper and shoves it in his jeans pocket. Since nature actually calls him, he takes care of that business too and then leaves the bathroom again. By now Dean is slumping a bit worse and so they hurry outside, back to the impala, where Sam drops Dean in the passenger side. Despite his sorry state, he immediately starts complaining about how Sam better treat Baby right and Nick tunes him out, eyes fixed on Sam, who is holding himself incredibly carefully, his shoulders tense, his breaths labored and Nick knows he’s just barely holding it together. Dean seems to get it too, because he doesn’t rant for too long.  
“We should get the bodies. Burn them, just in case”, Dean mumbles when he’s finally done, slumping into the seat and then Sam finally starts moving, pulls the impala out of their parking space and backs it into the alleyway stopping beside the dumpster. The panicked tension seems to drain out of them a bit as they fall into a well known pattern and Nick wonders how many bodies they burned in their life.   
“Stay”, Sam tells Dean, who is trying to wiggle out of his seat. “Could you…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, breaks off as his voice falters when Nick locks his gaze with his for just a second, before Sam pushes away, but Nick doesn’t need him to. He gets up quickly and walks behind the car, starts dragging the bodies out from where he hid them behind trash bags. Sam grabs some tarp from the impala’s trunk and tosses their bags on the backseat, then he helps Nick move the bodies on the tarp. He breathes shallowly and tries not to touches their exposed flesh, his muscles tense whenever he has to.   
After wrapping the bodies up, they heave them in the trunk and when Sam slams it shut, he does so with a trembling hand. “Lets finish this.” Sam gets behind the wheel again, waits until Nick has cleared his seat of the bags that slide over to his side and finally sits down. They make a quick stop at the motel, grab their remaining stuff and hand in the keys, then they disappear from town. At some point Sam pulls off the highway and then down another street until they are finally rolling down a small wooden path. Despite Sam’s protests, Dean gets out of the car, making a show out of the fact that he can walk a straight line again.  
“Told you Sam, I’m fine. A little bump on the head can’t knock me out of business. I don’t even have any memory loss. I know my name’s Dean Winchester, you’re my brother Sam, we hunt monsters and that fella over there is our best friend Pete.”  
By the time Sam turns around, Dean has a shit-eating grin on his face and he looks so smug it makes Nick want to bash his head in, but Sam’s look of terror until he realizes he’s been had is nice. “Ha ha, very funny, Dean”, Sam mumbles dryly and moves across the clearing. Dean shrugs and follows, still grinning. They build a pyre and even though all three of them are breathing hard in the end, Sam assures Nick that the effort is worth it.   
After all demon kills were a form of violent death and sometimes the specter decided to come after the person that had put the knife in them since the demon responsibly for it wasn’t there to deal with it any longer. Since hunters traveled it of course often led to ghosts that attacked anybody who seemed remotely similar to the person that killed them and had since moved on. So instead they would save future hunters the work and make sure the ghosts was given no other choice but to move on.  
They don’t say anything, just stand there as Dean grabs a box of matches, lights them in one expert swipe and then tosses them onto the pyre that was previously soaked in gasoline. Sam explains that this is normally preserved for hunters and loved ones, but since it is not really possible to perform a full salt and burn with bodies this fresh, they made it a point to burn them like this if in any way possible. The sticks catch fire soon enough and that’s when the flames finally reach the bodies wrapped in cloth. The already dark hue of the smoke grows even darker and for a moment the smell reminds Nick of BBQs and cookouts with his neighbors way back in the day, charred meat ready to be served, then it hits home that this is the smell of a human body, not a steak and Nick suddenly realizes that this is a completely new experience for him. He knows what bodies smell like, knows torture sweat of days of pain mixed with blood, knows the ripe and sweet smell of rot, the stink accompanying various stages of decomposition, the iron tangy smell of fresh blood which had hovered around him constantly while Lucifer was burning through him, but not this. It’s jarring and Nick can’t fight down a gag, because Lucifer held no love for fire, always said that was more his brother’s thing and the sadness and anger and love that floods through Nick as he remembers the conflicting feelings Lucifer had always felt when thinking about his brother suddenly become overwhelming. He staggers, tries to move away, but Sam gently puts a steadying hand on his shoulder, arm tense, but strong, breaths shallow and controlled. Nick relaxes in it and through the layers he’s wearing - true to hunter’s fashion and while Nick can see the usefulness, it still bothers him - and compared to the heat of the flames, Sam’s hand is feeling relatively cool and while Nick knows it’s not the real thing, not yet, he leans into it, enjoys that for once Sam is not like a furnace beside him, but closer to how he will be if everything goes according to plan. Nick can’t wait for the day where a touch of those hands will send shivers of ice down his shoulder, radiating through his chest and freezing his heart again, make it easier to breathe and think and move and so he closes his eyes and mumbles a quiet “Thank you.” If Sam misconstrues it as meant for him, a thanks for offering comfort to a companion in need, leading to a soft squeeze of Nick’s shoulder, instead of relief that Lucifer gave him another chance to fix this, well than that’s his own fault.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of murder, swearing, gore, nsfw (masturbation), fantasy about sexual assault (SamxOC, SamxNick)

As Nick had predicted, the journey back was a lot more relaxed. After a stop in a dinner - a solemn affair, Nick’s stomach still a mess from all the adrenaline and thus not really hungry, Sam just picking through his salad with his fork and wincing slightly every time he dares to swallow a mouthful and even Dean barely touching his burger - they finally arrive back at the Bunker. Dean, who claimed that he was all good to drive again after the dinner stop, drove faster than before. They still didn’t talk, classic rock rattling through the old speakers instead, but there where no scathing glances thrown towards Nick and Sam wasn’t constantly watching him either. Instead he was slumped in his seat, eyes on the road and his breaths slow and careful in a way that made it clear that he was struggling to hold it together. Nick couldn’t blame him. After spending so long thinking that Lucifer was after him, only to then be told that he didn’t care about him any more than he would a chewed up wad of gum would unsettle anyone. And even if Sam would never admit to it, Nick is sure that the rejection still stings a bit. After all he most likely still viewed himself as untouchable in a way, thought himself special no matter how much his destiny scared him. It makes Nick want to lean forward, grab Sam by his perfectly tugable hair, and tell him all about how Lucifer could never forget him, not when he was his perfect vessel, the only way Lucifer could shine in all his glory, nearly as much as it makes him want to bury his teeth in Sam’s neck and tear it out and watch him die just to remind him of his place, that ungrateful bitch.  
Back at the bunker, Sam immediately rushes into the library, grabbing a few books, and then to his room, ignoring Dean’s worried glances and Dean settles on the kitchen table and opens up a beer bottle and starts drinking. Nick hovers unsure for a minute, not wanting to push Sam any more than he already did, not wanting to push too hard too fast, but also not wanting to retreat into his own room just yet, the high of everything still burning through him. He hesitates until Dean pushes a second beer bottle, that Nick had assumed was also for him, across the table towards him.   
“How are you doing?” Dean finally asks, after Nick settles down and takes a tentative sip. Nick shrugs, pretends to be too exhausted to form a good answer after the day’s events and Dean’s mouth turns into a thin line. “That tired, huh?” He takes a long sip and closes his eyes, tension in the squeeze of his eyes and his knuckles. Nick doesn’t say anything, lets the tension rise higher, lets Dean struggle through whatever thoughts he’s having by himself. It’s amusing to watch and with the current high that Nick is floating on, he can even stomach Dean’s melodrama. “You fought well today. Like a real hunter.”   
The accusation is only thinly veiled and Nick barely suppresses an eye roll. Instead he frowns and looks down at his own bottle, faking shame. “Or somebody who was possessed by an archangel, you mean.” It comes out with a bit more bite than he intended, the fact that Dean’s trying to ruin his buzz twisting painfully hot in his stomach, and the silence that follows after is icy.   
“I-”, Dean begins and stops, glass clinking against the table as it’s set down and then a sigh and the rasp of palm rubbing over stubble. “Okay, yeah, or like somebody who was possessed by Lucifer, but definitely not like a civilian.”  
Nick looks up and Dean meets his eyes and there is no shame in them and it amuses Nick. He hides it under a mask of anger though, remembering the role he’s got to play. “Well, don’t mince your words on my behalf. But I didn’t lie. I don’t know how to fight. I’ve never done it. Never had any reason to. And then Lucifer came and he drowned my life in blood and gore and murder.” And I liked it, Nick thinks, but doesn’t say. “And as much as it sucks that this is why I somehow managed to do this, I saved your asses today.”  
“I’m sorry”, Dean finally says and he actually seems to be. “It’s just a bit hard for me to… to watch you and not see…” Dean trails off and Nick remembers the time in the graveyard again, back when Dean shot him (shot Lucifer), the way his body had crumbled and fallen, except of course, Lucifer had just laughed as he pretended to go down, savoring the shocked relief on the boys’ faces, before he had knitted the flesh and skull and brain matter back together and swung at Dean, hand hitting flesh, a grace fueled punch that could have gone straight through Dean, but Lucifer had put his power into pushing him away, sending him hurdling through the air and to the ground a few feet away. Or maybe Dean is thinking of the time that Lucifer tore Gods apart, his fists sinking straight through their bodies or his power ripping them apart. Either way, Nick can see the fear in Dean’s eyes and it sets his teeth on edge. He knew from the beginning that this wouldn’t be an easy job, but just when he thought that he’d made some progress, that he’d managed to get into their good graces - he’d saved both of their lives dammit, those demons would have killed them, if their mission hadn’t had a different goal - Dean crushes all his hopes that it changed anything. His displeasure must show on his face because Dean grimaces and apologizes again, then falls silent and drains his beer. He looks at the bottle with a frown after he’s done, then without looking at Nick starts talking again. “What I meant to ask is… are you okay with what happened?”  
Nick hesitates, pondering over how he should answer. Somehow this feels like a trap and he can’t afford to stumble into it now. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know enough about Dean, only remembers the self-righteous dick he was back then, filled with so much anger and hurt and single-minded drive to stop the apocalypse, but Nick obviously knows there’s more to him than that, so much more. It makes him falter a bit before he answers: “I… I guess not really? After he finally let me go, I didn’t expect I’d ever get into a situation like this again. But I can’t really do anything about my past now, so I’ll have to be okay with it. And this? I hate that I had to do it, I really do, but it kept Lucifer from claiming another life and that kinda makes it worth it.” The lies taste bitter, but Nick knows he has to do it. If he grimaces a bit in displeasure as he speaks, well, it just helps to sell the traumatized but determined part he’s playing. Or at least he hopes it does. He swallows nervously as he waits on Dean’s judgment and just for that feeling alone, he wants to tear him limb from limb or even better yet, a knife through his spine immobilizing him so he can carve his displeasure into his skin, all the words he wishes he could say now, but can’t, and then a hammer to finish his messed up Jackson Pollock-esque painting.  
Dean is watching him carefully, but then relaxes when Nick seems to pass muster. “Well, thank you for doing it. Do you want another one?”  
Nick relaxes too and smiles softly. “How about something stronger?”   
Dean grins, mumbles a “Well, you don’t gotta ask me twice” and gets up to walk over to a shelf, returning with a bottle of whiskey. He pours two glasses and slides one over to Nick, the action smooth and easy, as if he’s done it a million times before. And he probably has. From everything that Nick heard, Dean is a functioning alcoholic, relying on his daily one or two or seven drinks. He hasn’t really drunken a lot since Nick moved in, but then Nick hasn’t made it a habit to hang around the kitchen like Dean does and there’s definitely times that Dean can drink unobserved. But again, he doesn’t care, so he grabs the glass and swallows a mouthful. It burns hot and bitter as it slides down, the opposite of how Lucifer felt like, but somehow it’s not too bad. He’s not a big drinker, never has been, but he still grabs the glass and swallows, because he knows what this is. A sign that Dean finally trusts him.  
He doesn’t drink very much tonight, mumbles something about exhaustion from this long day and lack of sleep after the first two glasses and finally makes his way to his own bedroom. His way leads him past the library, which is empty, but unfortunately not past Sam’s room. And Nick is buzzed, but not wasted and so still in enough control to know that it would look suspicious if he changed route to march past Sam’s room now. Nick isn’t even sure if he would be able to control himself if he did, or if he would bend down to listen, curious to know if Sam is crying, or if he managed to drop of into an uneasy sleep, nightmares battering at him until he startles awake again. And that would surely rouse Dean’s distrust again if he was caught. So he doesn’t falter and instead walks into his room.  
When Nick finally closes the door behind himself a grin spreads over his face. As he leans against the cool wall, he imagines Lucifer’s icy touch and a whispered I’m proud of you and it’s enough to make is mouth run suddenly dry. God, he deserves this. He pulls off his T-Shirt, lets the cold seep into his body, but it’s not enough, never goes deep enough and a frustrated groan escapes his lips. He palms at his pants and opens them, but his dick stays flaccid, his own hand far too warm. He tries to think of Lucifer around him, in him, but that just makes him grow more frustrated, reminds him of how close and yet how far He is from him. He gives up after a few minutes of useless tugging, anger keeping him limb and he crawls into bed, kicks the blankets off and lets the cool air surround his body as he lays there in just his boxers. As the frustration drains away, he becomes aware of how tired he truly is and he quickly drifts off.  
Then he’s back in the alley, Sam on the ground in front of him, the demon pinning him down. Nick does not take his eyes off Sam to check where Dean is, because the sight is much too delicious. Sam’s shirt is undone, his hair a mess and the demon has its hands on his chest. It turns to Nick and winks as it grinds down against Sam, rolling its hips against the immobile hunter, letting a groan escape its lips, its eyes pitch black. Nick can feel arousal thrum through him and he steps forward. He’s holding the demon killing knife and he itches to slit the demon’s throat in the position it is in right now, blood splattering Sam as Nick holds it in place while it rides out its death throes, now truly dead body twitching against Sam and then Nick would be the one on top of him, pinning him down, taking everything he wants. As he lifts the knife the temperature suddenly drops and Nick freezes. Power crackles through the air and Nick slowly turns around, knows his arousal is obvious in his pants and when he locks his eyes with Lucifer’s glowing red ones it takes all his power not to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. He can feel his dream dissipate and suddenly he’s in the dark. Lucifer smiles proudly, His grace pulsating softly and only then Nick fully comprehends that Lucifer has decided to show Himself in His true form, not in His disguise built from angelic remains that long ago ceased to hold a real person, but as Himself. It’s dimmed down far for Nick’s benefit and then his knees do buckle and he goes down in front of the most beautiful of all the archangels. Even this dream form is powerful enough to make his eyes water and Nick screws them shut, the after image still pulsating with the beat of grace in front of him. Nick reaches out blindly and Lucifer envelops him, seals his pores and flows in all his orifices and for a moment Nick fears that Lucifer saw his desire and despite his usefulness has decided that he is still expendable. But then, to die like this, choking on His grace… well Nick can imagine worse. Then Lucifer pulsates again and He’s happy, Nick can feel it even before Lucifer starts talking. Nick knows he’s still hard, but it only registers marginally compared to the pleasure that is shooting through his body everywhere Lucifer is touching him. And Lucifer is touching him everywhere. Nick leans into it, mouth falling open wider to worship and more grace slides down his throat as Lucifer shushes him.   
“What do you plan to do next? How will you use my gift?” Lucifer grows brighter, becomes more intense and Nick screams. It hurts, his skin burning as it freezes and Nick draws in breath after ice cold breath, trying to get his vocal cords to cooperate. He can feel Lucifer’s impatience dancing over his nerves like electricity and a sob tears from his throat. Then he starts babbling about the plan’s he’s formed in his brain, vague and barely there yet, about how he plans to talk to Sam tomorrow, rope him into research, bond over the violence their hands dealt out and then gently Lucifer eases off him, a cool smile soothing Nick’s tortured body.   
“Bring him back to me”, Lucifer whispers, then He fades out. Nick wakes still hard in his boxers and his body unmarred, even though a shiver is running through him, too strong to be caused only by the cool room temperature. His fingers are even colder as he sneaks them down his body and wraps them around himself and he groans. He imagines red eyes watching him from the ceiling, a mouth stretched impossibly wide with too many teeth and then the image of Sam as a damsel in distress, thanking him for saving him, maybe on his knees, pops in his head and Nick buckles into his hand. He scrambles for the shirt he tossed aside when he stumbled to bed and uses it to catch most of his release to the thought of forcing Sam to look at him with a hand fisted in his hair.   
Breathing heavily, he wipes himself down and sits up. The admiration for Lucifer and the need to put Sam in his place are waring inside him and for once Nick is glad for the Bunker’s warding that make it impossible for Lucifer to see into his thoughts outside his dreams. But in the end, the image of Lucifer riding Sam again, finally able to show all his strength as soon as he’s snuggly settled inside his true vessel without having to worry about burning through him, because Sam is made perfectly to hold him, wins out for now and Nick gets up. He’ll shower and then set his plan to make this image a reality into motion. Preferably sooner than later.  
He stumbles up and towards the door, barely remembering to pull his boxers back up and grabbing a fresh change of clothes before he’s marching down the hallway. Sam’s room is quiet, even when Nick pauses in front of it for a second, hovering his ear above the wood, before moving on quickly and towards the shower. He washes himself and soaks his old T-Shirt to get the worst of the stains out. On the way to the laundry room, he sees soft light spilling from a hallway into the living room and excitement hurries him forward as he quickly loads the washing machine with his shirt and a few from the laundry pile. He’s fully awake now, his skin still tender from earlier and he knows that no matter what he does, he won’t sleep any more tonight - won’t sleep anymore until he can give Lucifer a report on his progress. He runs his fingers through his hair, ruffling it so it and moves quickly through the main hall, then sluggishly as he enters the hallway where the light comes from. He quickly realizes that he is being led to the library and he only barely manages to control his step to not sound too excited even as a grin spreads across his face. As he turns the corner, after rearranging his features into a hopefully acceptable sleepy “I can’t really see that well yet” grimace, he’s greeted with the sight of Sam’s back to him, the man slumped over the table, nose buried in the book open in front of him.  
He remembers his little fantasy of Sam on his knees with his hair falling into his face and the coincidence is too much. He sends a quick prayer of thanks to Lucifer, even though he knows it’s impossible that He will hear it. Sam is quiet as Nick enters the room, but he lets out a deep breath when Nick finally stops. “Why are you awake?”, he asks without turning around, but his shoulders are tense and stiff and Nick just knows that if he keeps this up, Sam will ruin his back very soon.  
“Could ask you the same thing”, Nick mumbles and steps closer, his bare feet falling loud against the tile floor in the silence even when he’s walking carefully. He enjoys the cold against his toes, curls them into the tiles as he gets closer and closer.   
Sam gets up, his movements stiff and controlled, just slow enough to pass for normal and not a hurried bolt out of the chair. He towers over Nick now and still moves back slightly, presses against the table and inches slowly to the side. His eyes are fixed on Nick and his hand is resting on his hip, fingers grazing over the handle of the knife attached to his belt.   
Nick takes a small step back and puts on his most pitiable mask and then drops his gaze away from Sam as if this is all too much for him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interrupted you or intruded on your space. It’s just…” And he pulls a grimace at that, his lips twitching as if the next words are something that’s hard for him to say. “I woke up and I didn’t want to be alone after…” At this he lifts his eyes again, lets his eyes flood with tears (onions, think of onions. He too has many layers) and meets Sam’s wide open and terrified ones, then he lets his gaze slide to the side, fixes it on the shelf besides Sam’s throat, the purple standing out starkly against Sam’s terror pale skin. “I saw someone was awake and I-” Sam swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing hard and then he steps back, gestures for Nick to sit down. Nick grabs for the closest chair, the one beside Sam and Sam quickly, but not too quickly, every movement still carefully controlled, moves around the table as if that would protect him if Nick was Lucifer and here to hurt him.  
“You can stay… If you want to.” The words are weak, trembling, and Nick is pretty sure that if he were a better person, he would step back, acknowledge Sam’s discomfort and leave him be, but he isn’t and the freezing cold of Lucifer’s anger still ripples over his skin and with a soft smile Nick sinks down on the chair.  
“Thank you”, he says when he means fuck you. He watches Sam carefully, registers the slight tremble in his hand, the flutter of his eye lashes, the still painfully obvious tension in his whole body, like a bowstring, quivering and Nick can’t help but wonder which direction the arrow would fly, whose skin it would pierce if he pushed too hard until something gives. Then he sees a ripple go through Sam, the forced unclenching of muscles and Sam settles down opposite Nick, pulls the book towards him and holds it in a white knuckled grip. It’s a big ledger that Nick has never seen before, the cover weathered and wrinkled and Nick yearns to know what it’s about, but Sam pulls it closer towards himself as if he could make it disappear inside himself.   
Then, after another hard swallow and deep breath, he finally starts speaking. “How are you doing after yesterday?”  
Nick shrugs, lets himself fall into his role. “Worse than I hoped I would…” he trails off and lets a self-depreciating grin flit over his face and watches the way Sam softens at it, compassion and understanding bleeding over his features until any trace of mistrust is gone. It makes Nick want to rip him apart and watch him bleed out just to remove this stupid “I know what you’re going through and its okay” look, but in some way it’s also beautiful. Nick thinks again about Sam on his knees, worshiping.   
Sam snaps him back to the present with a soft “I’m sorry. What happened yesterday is not your fault.” Sam’s voice is stronger then it was before and his eyes are locked at Nick’s face, soft and gentle and begging to be believed, and Nick realizes that this is the first time Sam looks at him with no trace of fear visible. It has been overridden by Sam’s belief that Nick could be good, his stupid idealism stronger than instinct and even though its pathetic, there’s a small part of Nick that elates at it, even loves it.  
He swallows hard and forces himself to look away from Sam’s imploring eyes and suddenly he understands how Ruby could handle being with him for so long, do everything that was necessary to free Lucifer. He quickly pushes that feeling down. “I… I know. I did what I had to do.” Am still doing that, he thinks. Lucifer. His goal is to return Lucifer to his full glory. And that’s all that matters. “But still… when Lucifer was possessing me, he made me hurt people. And then he was gone and I thought it was over. Except now I’m the one who’s hurt people. Not my hands, not Lucifer, I did that. And I… I saw the moment they died and…” Nick pauses, swallows again, unsure of how far he can push this, but when he searches out Sam’s face again, there’s sympathy in his eyes… the tenderness of shared pain even and so Nick surges forward. “I felt happy.” A truth. “Cause it meant they couldn’t hurt anyone else. That they wouldn’t devastate another family.” Two lies and Sam buys them all, hook, line, sinker. “So it might have been justified, I had a reason, but I still killed… and I don’t feel guilty. So that makes me… it makes me…”   
Sam reaches out, long arm stretched over the table to grab Nick’s shoulder and there’s so much anger and pain in his gaze that for a second Nick thinks he messed up, that this was too much, that Sam will finish his sentence with “a monster” and to pull him forward and down, slam his head into the table, because Sam’s figured it out, saw a glimpse that revealed that he had enjoyed killing those people and that he would do it again and again, would do anything if it meant Lucifer would come back to him and that means Nick’s gonna die now and Lucifer will be so mad. His skin freezes over and he’s back in his dream, nerves screaming in agony as Lucifer wrapped around him and pulsated, his power too much for Nick to ever withstand and then warmth seeps through his shirt, a soft squeeze of his shoulder and Sam is smiling at him, a gentle curve of his lips and Nick knows he’s safe.  
“You’re not Him”, he says with such conviction that Nick knows he’s trying to convince the both of them. “You’re not”, Sam repeats, softer this time and this time the conviction has drained out of his voice and instead it’s a plea, a beg to be believed and to be right. And Nick knows he should be working on reeling his catch in, but it is just too amusing to see Sam dangle and so he savors in this for a moment, the fear and terror waring with empathy in Sam’s face.  
Finally Nick releases Sam’s gaze and nods softly, smiles. “Thank you.”  
Sam swallows the bait deeper and then pulls his arm back. “I should be thanking you”, he says. “You saved my life there. If you hadn’t acted…” Sam’s now free hand goes to his own throat, fingers barely grazing the purple necklace that’s decorating his skin. “More people would have died. You did the right thing.”  
Nick swallows hard, bile rising in his throat at how cloyingly sweet Sam’s speech is and he just knows that there is some other guilt complex at work there beside the fact that he needed Nick to kill for him. But he can play the damsel too. He blinks, pretends to be close to tears and lifts his gaze to Sam’s face again, stares at him as if he was his salvation and Nick soaking up every word. “You really mean that? I was worried that after everything that happened… not just yesterday, but all of it, when Lucifer possessed me, when he used my body to hurt… And yet, you’re here…” Sam swallows hard at that, the fear back in his eyes and Nick wonders which moment of Lucifer’s courtship of him he’s thinking about or if there’s something more. Still Nick decides to push his luck and he reaches his hand out and grabs Sam’s wrist, desperate and just a bit too hard, pressing it down against the book. “Thank you, thank you so much”, Nick chokes out as he forces more tears into his eyes.  
Sam has gone completely still underneath him and Nick can feel his pulse thunders against his thumb. He wants to squeeze harder, feel the bones shift and crack and he wants to lift his other hand and place it against the marks on Sam’s throat, feel the racing heartbeat against his palm and he wants to- But then Sam is pulling back, gentle and carefully and oh so slow, and Nick’s finger twitch unbidden, itching to clamp down, but instead he loosens his hold, offers no resistance as Sam slips out of his grip and his chair and stands up.  
He forces a shaky yawn, using the hand Nick didn’t touch to cover his mouth, the other visibly shaking even as he tries to hide it behind his body. “Actually, I’m still pretty tired. I’ll see if I can sleep some more now. Goodnight.” And without waiting for an answer, he briskly walks out of the room.   
Nick can’t bring himself to feel guilty over the abrupt end of their conversation. He got a lot of further than he had expected tonight and he can still feel Sam’s heartbeat battering against his fingers like a trapped bird against its cage.   
Having just woken and with the heady feel of elation he doesn’t feel ready to go to bed again. He wants to feel Sam’s heartbeat like this again. The pulse of ice cold grace creeps over his skin again and Nick’s mind stutters to a halt. He shouldn’t be thinking about this. Lucifer would be displeased and Nick knows how Lucifer treats those who piss him off. And yet… the memory of Sam’s hammering heart pulsing against his palm makes him want, no need to feel more of it. There has to be a way. One that will not call Lucifer’s wrath down to him like hail.  
He gets up and walks through the library, browsing the shelves. His half formed plan leads him to a section he hasn’t had to visit before. Magic, spells, illusions. He grabs two tomes whose titles look kind of promising and settles back at the table. He reads until his bladder reminds him of other things and after quickly cleaning up, making sure every book is back in its place, so Sam can’t guess what he researched, Nick leaves the library. By now his plan is more fully formed, slowly coming together in his mind and he’s smiling as he walks down the empty halls. Of course, he’ll need to be patient, but it’s something to look forward to. The main hall and the kitchen is empty as he passes through and by them. Sam is probably still locked up in his room and if the empty bottle of whiskey on the kitchen table is any indication of Dean’s state, he’ll probably be out of commission for a while longer. After relieving himself, he goes back to his room and lays down for a bit. He’s not really sleeping, but instead daydreaming about the steps necessary to execute his plan. By the time hunger urges him out of the room, it all seems to be coming together perfectly. At least in his head.  
The kitchen is still empty and untouched and a quick glance at the clock shows him that it’s already 9 a.m. By now Sam would have been awake for a couple of hours, come back from his morning run, showered, probably used his leave in conditioner that smells like apples and settled down to do some researching or reading in the living room until Dean calls him to breakfast. After Nick was granted his freedom of movement, he would rotate with who he would join during their routines, not wanting them to think he preferred one over the other. The silence at this late hour is unsettling and Nick knows that Lucifer’s plan has knocked the relatively orderly life of Sam and Dean into disarray. Nick just hopes he can use the storm to soar instead of sink.  
He leaves the kitchen to check on the laundry, but finds the washing machine emptied and the clothes hung up. Since it’s likely that Dean is still sleeping off his buzz, that leaves only Sam. It’s cute. Kinda reminds Nick of Sarah, his wife, and the way she used to take care of him. Come to think of it, they both had soft brown hair too. His fingers itch again. With nothing else to do, he returns to the kitchen and decides to repay the favor. He cleans the table, washes the glasses and adds the empty bottles to the other empty bottles under the sink. Then he rummages through the freezers, pulls out some bacon for Dean and some eggs for an omelet for himself and Sam. After preparing the ingredients, he walks out into the hallway and lets one of the doors slam behind him. Just as he hoped, Sam first, then groggily Dean enter the kitchen. By that time, Nick had the bacon sizzling in one pan and the omelet with spring onions and vegetables nearly fully cooked.  
“That for me?” Dean mumbles, eying the bacon hungrily at the same time as Sam mumbles a stunned “Thank you.”  
Nick smiles softly at the praise. It is slightly intoxicating as he realizes that they now trust him enough to prepare food for them. “I though some grease might be good for your stomach.”  
Dean rolls his eyes at that and groans in immediate regret, before walking past Nick to the pan, grabbing a plate from the cabinet and the spatula from beside the pan. Sam grins at that and Nick smiles back slightly. For a moment their eyes meet and Sam’s smile trembles, but then ultimately stays even though it stretches a little bit taunt. Nick pretends not to notice and turns around to check on the omelet one last time. By now it’s done and so he separates it into two pieces and and puts it on two plates. In the meantime Sam has grabbed forks, bread, salt and paper and carried them to the table. Soon after they are all seated and eating and while Dean is eating fast as always, fork darting to Sam’s plate to steal some of his omelet now and again, Sam thanks Nick for the food again and Dean hums in agreement. Then silence settles over them until they are finished.  
Only then does Sam break the quiet. But he doesn’t do it to bring up last night’s conversation or the way it had ended. Instead it’s about things outside the Bunker. “What are we going to do about Lucifer now? He obviously still doesn’t want to be found and we have no way of tracking him, especially not now that he’s still laying low. Same with the Darkness.” For a second something flickers through Dean’s eyes, but he quickly pushes it down. Sam isn’t looking at him, squinting into thin air as he’s musing about their problems. Nick files Dean’s reaction away to remember, but decides not to dwell on it any further. It might just be the hangover. This is the second time Nick has heard about the Darkness since he arrived in the Bunker, but since he’s sure that it’s not a danger to his mission, or Lucifer would have given him a heads up - probably - he zones out as Dean answers and doesn’t participate in their conversation. Instead he gets up to clean the plates away and Dean, who looks a lot better after his greasy breakfast, doesn’t even try to politely dissuade him. As soon as Nick has turned his back to Sam and Dean, a grin spreads over his face.  
The first test necessary for his plan to succeed has worked out marvelously.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: sexual content, mentions of gore and murder

When Nick finally has time to set another part of his plan into motion a few more days have passed. During those days and nights, he had again spent a lot of time in the library with Sam, researching, even though Sam had been careful not to delve into too dark topics. At some point Nick had asked Dean about the Darkness and what it did exactly, so Dean had explained that she was the sister of God and no one really knew what she wanted, except that she was quite dangerous. But since there was nothing that could defeat a creature of this power, they had decided to focus on Lucifer instead. Sam had given Dean a dark look at that, pain and compassion in his eyes and received a scowl in return, but with Nick there neither of them had elaborated further. And Nick hadn’t dared to ask, too afraid of being shut down and subsequently shut out of further conversation.  
But now, after a few nights spent exploring the Bunker and asking Sam about various spells and magic rituals and how the Winchesters got their supplies, he now finally knows exactly where the storage area is and tonight he’s planning on exploring that. Dean has been sleeping bad, it’s visible in the rings that have formed around his eyes or maybe he’s trying to avoid sleep for some reason, but tonight both of them had gone to bed early, Dean probably exhausted after returning from the Bunker’s garage covered in grease before stumbling to the bathroom and Sam having not slept a lot the night before. Nick knows it’s a long shot at best and quite risky, but the craving has been growing inside him more and more each day and he wants to at least have the assurance that he could set his plan in motion if he wanted to.  
He’s illuminating the way with the small flashlight he had found in his room and added new batteries to. Of course, it would look a bit more suspicious if they caught him sneaking like that, but at least Sam knew that he sometimes wandered the halls at night, unable to sleep, because Nick had told him so when he had stumbled across him again in the library one night for some more late night research.  
To Nick’s great relief the storage room is unlocked and so he quickly slips inside and finds himself between huge shelves. This… might be harder than he initially expected. Thankfully his plan won’t require too many ingredients. The first shelf is filled with nothing but powders and Nick’s heart jumps in his chest when he sees the one he’s been looking for after a while. As fate would have it, he remembered to bring a small pouch to fill the powder in, so he doesn’t have to take the whole jar, which might be a lot more suspicious. Putting the lid back on proves harder than he anticipated as with the spike of adrenaline at finding what he was looking for so quickly, his hands have started shaking a bit. It clinks loudly in the dark and Nick is shaking by the time he’s done. He stores the powder away in his jeans back pocket and then continues his way past the shelves. It takes a bit longer to locate the herb he’s looking for this time and by the time he pockets it, the tremor has subsided, but now his heart is racing and his palms have started to grow damp. His stomach feels a bit weird too and for a moment Nick wonders if there’s some magic warding here that could detect evil intent and weaken the wrongdoer, but he pushes onward. Finally he spots the last thing he needs for tonight. He’s reaching for it, hands now sweat slick and he has to stretch a bit as it is on one of the higher shelves. He’s nearly got his fingers closed around it, when he hears a sound echo through the Bunker. Then steps. Nick freezes and presses the flashlight into his thigh to cover the light. If they catch him in here, it’s over.   
If they catch him in here, Lucifer will tear him apart.  
Nick freezes and for the first time in forever prays to somebody that isn’t Lucifer, begging that he won’t be detected.  
He froze in a bad position and it doesn’t take long for his back to start smarting. He thinks about readjusting his stance a little bit, but he is too anxious that a sliver of light could peak out while he shifts. So he waits.   
The steps grow louder and then quieter and then louder again. Then finally nothing. Nick remains in position for a little while longer, then he drops out of his stance and lets out a pressed hiss that seems way to loud in the silence and to Nick’s strained ears. He’s safe, for now at least. He quickly grabs the last ingredient and then walks out of the door, closing it behind himself.   
As he passes by Sam’s room he can’t help but try and listen in and he jumps in surprise when a bang and clattering sounds through the door. Nick lets out a soft startled gasp and immediately freezes. Fuck. If Sam just heard him… Nick can’t just walk away… it would seem suspicious. Checking that his flannel is long enough to cover his back pockets where he’s stuffed his findings, he walks to the door and knocks, before he can talk himself out of it.  
For a moment it’s quiet, then the door opens. Sam is peering out at him and his face softens when he sees him. Nick’s stomach twists as if he’s hungry. “Oh hey. Sorry, I hope I didn’t disturb you.”  
“No, uh… I was just coming back from the bathroom and I heard… something from your room. Are you okay?”  
Sam looks over his shoulder and grimaces as he turns around. “Yeah, no, it’s fine. I just… swept a book and a glass and a plate from my table, but I’m fine, nothing happened.”  
Before Nick has time to think, his stupid mouth is opening. “I could grab a broom and a dustpan. I know where they are.”  
Sam too must be remembering their first meeting in the kitchen when they had destroyed two mugs. It’s kinda sweet to think about how far they’ve come since then. After a tense few seconds, he nods his consent. “Thank you.”  
Nick smiles and turns around, walking carefully so that his flannel wont move too much and reveal his stuffed pockets. As soon as he’s out of sight of Sam’s room, he speeds up a little bit, walking towards his room first. He stashes his things in his nightstand table, before moving quickly to the kitchen. Thankfully his extensive night time wanderings through the hall make it easy for him to find his way around. Soon he’s in front of the kitchen and only moments after he’s ready to return to Sam.   
Sam is no longer leaning in his door frame has he had been when Nick had arrived, but he pops his head out of his only partially open door soon enough when he hears Nick walk down the hallway.   
“Thank you so much”, he smiles and takes the items from Nick’s hands. Then suddenly he hesitates for a second. “Couldn’t sleep either, huh?”  
Nick quickly nods his assent. Maybe this will mean a few more hours in the library with Sam tonight. Instead Sam steps aside and gestures with his head for Nick to come in. Nick is hesitant as he steps across the door frame, his heart beating way too fast in his chest, blood rushing in his ears and his eyes busy trying to take everything in at once. Somewhere fate (or Lucifer) is smiling at him, Nick just knows it. Entering Sam’s sanctuary for the first time is both magical and then quickly underwhelming. Nick isn’t sure what he expected, just walls filled high up with books or maybe an assorted flannel collection in all the colors of the rainbow, but not this. This room is almost utilitarian in its decoration. Which is minimal. The walls are empty, just a mirror that must have been here long before Sam ever set foot in this room and a clothes hanger with two jackets and one flannel hung upon it. Even the bed looks untouched, but that might just the the tightly tucked in covers and the fact that Sam doesn’t look as if he’s been sleeping tonight. The only place that looks like it’s ever used in this room is the table that Sam has left in disarray. Beside the now empty space where the glass, plate and book must have laid there’s an old timey telephone, a notebook and a handful of pens strewn across it. The crunch of glass and porcelain scraping against metal draws his attention back to Sam, who’s crouching beside the table and scooping up the mess. He empties the shovel twice in a small garbage can, before he finally leans it against the wall and picks up the book gingerly. It is the same old book, Nick notices, that Sam had been reading the other day.   
Then after grabbing the book and shaking it over the trashcan one last time, Sam moves to his bed and after hovering there for a second turns around to pull out his chair. “You can sit if you want.”  
Then he plops down on his bed, book laid across his lap. “Are you okay? I noticed you don’t really sleep a lot”, he finally says and looks at Nick. Nick noticed that too and he’s wondering if maybe Lucifer has a hand in that. If the long possession he experienced maybe changed something about him or if this is a gift from Lucifer, but he’s not entirely sure. And in the end, he doesn’t really care. If everything goes according to plan, than maybe he won’t ever need to sleep again.  
He decides to go with the safer answer, because it was true. He realized that with all the lying he was doing it was sometimes still easier to just say the truth. “I… when I fall asleep now, sometimes… I dream of Him.”  
Sam flinches at the confession, but there’s no disgust in his eyes. Just the same old fear and pity and Nick knows how to deal with that, knows how to mold it.  
“I do too”, Sam mumbles and Nick blinks at him stunned at that. He’s not confused about it happening, because that had been a given, but that Sam would admit it to him just like that is a miracle in itself.  
Sam swallows hard and grimaces, his voice kinda weak and faltering as he’s talking. “Sometimes…” He breaks off, knuckles white from his grip on the book and then suddenly spits the words out like they are burning him. “Have you ever seen His real face?”  
Of course, Sam would get to see Lucifer’s real face. As his true vessel, he was probably the only human who could see it and not suffer unimaginable pain from it. Nick swallows the jealously down and shrugs his shoulders. “Not really. I… well, He always had to use some of His powers to shield me while He was possessing me. Most of the time he appeared to me in the form of myself or… my wife. He said he had to use those disguises to… well, he said it was to protect me, but I guess it was more to keep me from falling apart too quickly.” Which is true. Back then Lucifer would never appear to him in His true form. He would let it shine through every now and then and that had been enough to let Nick fantasize about it until He returned, but even the vastly dimmed version he had seen in his dream had been so much more than he could have ever imagined.  
“Oh”, Sam mumbles and leans back even further, the death grip he has on the book starting to loosen as his fingers begin to tremble. “I thought that maybe… Never mind, I’m sorry for dragging this up again.”  
“Hey, it’s okay”, Nick quickly says and reaches out, before he can think better of it. His fingers brush over Sam’s hand and this time Sam doesn’t flinch away. Instead he relaxes slightly and lifts his gaze again. He still looks wary and scared, but also… needy. As if he desires Nick’s reassurance and that makes Nick’s heart (and other parts) jump in excitement. “When I… while I was in the hospital after He left me… I obviously couldn’t really relate to the people there. Sure, all of them had their stories about why they were there, but what happened to me was unique. When I said, that I had been forced to slaughter a house full of Gods and that I knew what all kinda of different blood tastes like because He would enjoy exploding them or lick His hand after He was done punching it through their chest, or that I was sure I had caused a few earth quakes killing so many people… no one understood that. They didn’t know that it was real, not just real to me, but actually real. And yet, I met this woman there, Leila, and even if what she experienced was completely different and she didn’t believe that it was reality, she let me talk to her without judgment. She just listened. And that can help. Now, we also have the perk that we are probably the only two people on the planet that both know the truth and that know how it feels to… to be possessed by Him. So, you can talk to me. No judgment, I promise.”   
Sam relaxes, his fingers regain some of their color and then Nick gently lowers his hand, settling it on top of Sam’s fully. This time Sam does not flinch away, instead he seems to relax even further under it.  
And then he starts talking. Slow and unsteady at first, confessions about how terrible Lucifer’s face had been, that the Cage removed human limitations because Lucifer could take him apart to his molecules and rebuild him with the snap of a finger and so he had been able to see him. Sometimes, in the beginning, Lucifer would make him just watch him, remove his eye lids if Sam tried to look away, beauty and terror and so, so much power and Sam had been helpless through all of it. Nick doesn’t have to say anything, because Sam goes on by himself, only needs the occasional hmm and ahh and I’m so sorry and then the words keep tumbling, tales of torture and years upon years upon years and then suddenly Sam stops himself, trembles, pulls back slowly and carefully and folds himself up on his bed.  
“I’m sorry for laying all this on you. It’s a lot.” There’s the guilt again.  
Nick nods, eyes flickering to the ground before they return back to Sam’s face. “It is. But that’s not your fault. Did it at least help a little?”  
Sam hesitates, mulls it over, before answering. Then, surprise rounds his mouth and his eyes as he comes to a conclusion and his body relaxes. “It did. Thank you.” A soft smile lights up his face and suddenly Sam is deeply grateful for the Suck It Up way John Winchester raised his boys. If the simple act of talking it out was that cathartic to Sam, getting this done would be a lot easier than Nick had anticipated.  
Then Sam yawns as the tension seems to drain out of him.   
“If you’re gonna be okay now, I’ll give you your space”, Nick offers, not wanting to overstay his welcome and afraid of ruining his progress by pushing to hard. He tries to remember what Leila had done with him. Somehow she had always known when his temper had swung from self-pity to volatile and she had known when to get the hell out of dodge. Nick hasn’t thought about her since he was released and put into an out-patient program, but he owed her his freedom. She had been one of the first people to make him believe that if he lied he could get out of there at some point. He quickly shakes her from his mind. Her approach would take too long.  
Sam climbs from the bed again and offers Nick his hand again, a goodnight shake and it makes Nick smile. Their hands linger against each other for maybe a little bit too long and Nick can feel Sam clinging onto him for comfort, before he pulls away, as if ashamed.  
This night, thankfully, Lucifer doesn’t visit him in his dreams. He’s not sure if he could hide his excitement and Lucifer never did like somebody else playing with his toys.  
After this night his relationship with Sam grows closer. When Sam had earlier put his chair opposite of Nick, putting the table between them, he now grabbed the one beside him. Even during their meal breaks the atmosphere had become calmer, Sam eating a little bit more finally. Dean on the other hand, seemed to be getting worse and worse, clearly sleeping badly and anxiety clawing at him. Nick had heard him and Sam murmur something about the Darkness a few times, but whenever he thought he had gotten close enough to overhear their conversation, they stopped, as if they had a preternatural sense making sure no one could nose around their business. But Nick decided to accept it without further question, because Dean’s distraction and the way he pushes Sam away to drown in the bottle makes it a lot easier makes his job so much easier. At some point Nick even managed to make it into the bathroom not long after Sam was done with his morning routine and instead of his comb locked in his cabinet untouchable - the necessity of it explained through the dangers of Dean and prank wars, when Nick had asked - but this time it was lying on top of the cabinet. Nick carefully picked two hairs out of it and wrapped them around the base of his pinky finger. They were long and dark and thus quite hard to hide, but once more luck was on his side as he managed to make it back to his room where he could unspool and hide the hair with the rest of his ingredients.  
But best of all is the fact that every day Sam seemed to get just a little bit closer. When he now had to show Nick something in one of the books they were researching, he would lean over to him, body heat bleeding between the two of them. He didn’t invite Nick to his room again, but they talked a lot more, hushed voices, heads bowed close together as they traded stories. Mostly about hell. Sometimes about earth. Often about the aftermath. Sometimes Sam stopped himself from saying some things, but Nick knew better than to press. He’d find out in due time. And anyway, everything Sam told him was like music in Nick’s ears. He had thought that Sam had gotten away relatively unscathed. That he had gotten to walk the earth again after he had taken Lucifer from him and float right back into his old life. But as it seemed Lucifer had made him pay. Not enough of course, there could never be a punishment that fit the crime, but it soothed a raging fire in Nick’s belly. It made it easier. If their knuckles sometimes accidentally brushed against each other, or their flanneled arms, rarely their thighs and Sam would always flinch away as if he’d touched a hot stove only to return, careful to be not too close, just close enough to feel the heat Nick gave off.  
Nick made sure to always shower hot after that and wear enough layers so that his fingers didn’t get cold. Just in case. He already knew he was going to get to have his fun, so there was no more need to tease Sam now. Sam got even closer at that, seeming to suck up the warmth that Nick gave off. And if he leaned into Nick’s chest a little bit when Nick bent over him to grab his glass of water to refill it during their library research times, neither of them commented on it. Not yet.  
When it finally happened, Nick hadn’t been prepared for it.  
One morning, following another day of research and another night of empty sleep - Lucifer hadn’t visited him in a while, seemingly okay with his progress, and while Nick feared it, he also missed it - he stumbled out of his room and down the hallway. He had trained himself to walk quietly in these halls and so he heard the voices long before they would have ever had a chance to hear him.  
Another argument about something. Except this time, Dean seemed angrier, more pissed off, than he normally did. Nick was reminded of a wounded animal cornered. But Sam, bleeding heart, the good Samaritan, never knew when to leave well enough alone. He pushed harder.   
“Dean, I think talking about this might help you. I’m not gonna judge you, but you haven’t been sleeping and whatever it is, it’s clearly affecting you.”  
“Oh… Not sleeping? You are gonna lecture me on bad sleep? And open communication? You? Mr. I’m this close to snorting grounded coffee beans because I have chronic nightmares that I refuse to talk about? Really?”  
Quiet, then a confession, Sam probably with his gentle, begging puppy dog eyes, his back hunched so as to appear smaller, trying to gentle the raging sea of Dean’s emotions. “I’ve been talking about my problems. It helps.”  
Dean snorts. “Yeah, sure. You know, diaries don’t count as conversation.”  
“No, I mean… I’ve been talking… with Nick.”   
Quiet follows after that and Nick can nearly taste the static crackling before Dean lets out an angry huff. “Oh, okay. I see what this is about. Your therapy sessions with Nick aren’t going anywhere right now, so you thought you’d check in on your messed up brother. But I’m fine. I can handle this. It’s just nightmares. It’s just… ” He breaks off, his voice strained and high pitched with emotion, anger and terror. Then it drops again as Dean growls: “None of your business, is what it is. If you want to fix something you broke, go talk to your boyfriend.” It’s not a punch, but it might as well be and Nick can nearly smell the iron tang of Sam’s blood gushing. It’s delicious. Then he hears steps and he quickly ducks into one of the storage rooms to the side. He hears Dean thunder down the halls and slam the door to the garage. If Dean still has the same coping mechanism as Lucifer told him he had way back then, he’ll be going on a drive, probably hurrying to a bar to drown his pain and shame and whatever other conflicting emotions made him lash out at his brother like that.  
He hears stumbling steps not long after, shaky like a deer’s first steps, then suddenly more purposeful and down the hallway. He waits until they stopped and carefully slides the door open. For a moment he’s unsure on whether or not he should follow, but in the end he does. He doesn’t spot Sam in the kitchen or the living room and so he walks further, praying that Sam hasn’t gone into his room again, made himself unavailable once more. But Sam is in the library, busying himself by pulling books from the shelf. His face is a grim mask and behind the anger Nick knows there is pain.  
“Hey”, Nick begins and Sam lifts his head quickly, hope in his eyes. But he isn’t Dean and even if Sam tries to hide his disappointment, Nick still sees it. Did he expect Dean to already be back with either an apology or a distraction? Cute, but absolutely wrong. “I heard Dean leave… Is everything okay?”  
Sam huffs at that, then shrugs. “He’s just… kinda really stressed right now. It will be okay. Sorry you had to be there for that.”  
Nick smiles. “Nothing to be sorry for. Anything I can help you with?”  
Sam stops, lifts the book he’s just pulled out of the shelf and weighs it in his hand for a second, defeat slumping his shoulders. Then he lets it sink again. “I don’t know. Unless you know a way to stop both Lucifer and God’s sister… Who is the reason we even asked Lucifer for help in the first place…” Guilt cracks his voice and it would be so easy to dig his fingers in there and tear Sam apart.  
Nick moves over, reaches out his hand again and takes the book from Sam. He places it on the table which is a stretch as he doesn’t want to move away from Sam too much, but then he’s immediately back next to Sam and when he reaches for Sam’s hand, he finds it open and waiting, greedy for the warmth Nick brings. He squeezes it softly. Sam squeezes back. “We’ll find a way. There has to be a way to fix this.”  
“Thank you”, Sam mumbles and steps forward, comes even closer to Nick until he can feel Sam’s body heat and he knows Sam can feel his. Without a book in between them or a table, not even the pretense of research, Nick can feel tension taunt like a string and Nick is just waiting for it to snap. He wants to reach out and force Sam to his knees, but he forces himself to keep still instead. “Not just for this now, but for everything. You’ve been… so helpful since you came here and I…” Despite Sam’s many layers making sure he never actually gets cold, Nick can see the hairs standing up on his neck. Sam is tense again, but this time it’s a different fear. Nick rotates his hand, lets it glide over Sam’s and a shiver goes through him. But he doesn’t pull back, instead he moves even closer. It’s quiet for a few more heartbeats, which Nick can feel thump against his hand. “I think I like you?”, Sam finally asks and the words seem to surprise him a little bit as they come out.   
Nick smiles and finishes the rotation of his wrist, twirls their fingers together, palms pressed tight and moves closer himself until their arms are touching. He’s small next to Sam, but being Lucifer’s vessel taught him better than anything that size didn’t matter. “I like you too”, he replies and reaches out with his second hand, let’s it glide up to Sam’s face, tickle through his hair. “I didn’t think I would… I mean… I realized pretty soon I’d like you, but I didn’t think I’d like you this much. But you’re kind and sweet and you understand. More than anybody else.” He feels Sam shiver under his touch and lean into it at the same time.  
He’s tense again and suddenly Nick wants. He calms himself and forces his fingers not to burrow into Sam’s hair and yank him forward and down, but instead he just applies a gentle pressure, a suggestion merely. “Dean thinks…” Sam swallows, eyes now closed and Nick can feel his pulse speed up where their hands are intertwined. “He thinks we are already… because of all the time we spend talking.”  
Nick grins, makes a soft humming sound, knowing that Sam can’t see him and he knows Sam must feel his own heartbeat racing too. Sam isn’t pulling back at all though and so Nick doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to convince him further when he already knows where this is going. Then slowly Sam moves closer as Nick guides him down and closer. Sam stops, hovers as his face hovers inches from Nick’s upturned and waiting one and Nick is hit with minty wet breath.  
“You’re warm.” Sam opens his eyes and smiles, seems to even enjoy Nick’s own wet and hot and certainly not minty breath and Nick wants to lifts his second hand and bury it in Sam’s hair, spin them around and then back, pinning Sam between himself and the bookshelf. But still, he forces himself to wait, breathes in and out and runs his thumb softly over Sam’s cheek, fingers curling in the nape of his neck, sending another shiver through Sam. “Do you… can I… Is it okay if I kiss you?”, Sam finally stutters out as if he’s a teenager on his first date.  
“Yes”, Nick says and then increases the pressure slightly until Sam is nearly there, then he waits until Sam bridges the rest. He hovers for one long moment that makes Nick want to just yank him forward already and then they are kissing, a soft, gentle, barely there graze of lips and their hands are no longer intertwined, because Nick is running his up Sam’s arm to grip it and Sam’s hands are grabbing Nick’s waist, holding him tight to let warmth bleed through his flannel and shirt and even if this is Sam he’s kissing, Sam who runs hot, with his warm mint breath and all the guilt and confused feelings, Nick enjoys it. The hand he still has on Sam’s head, moves back a bit, snatches a few of the hairs and curls them gently.   
And then after an eternity that lasted maybe ten seconds tops, Sam is pulling away again, smiling softly. He lifts his hands from Nick’s waist and Nick releases his hair, head and arm and suddenly there’s distance between them.   
“So…” Nick smiles softly. “Guess Dean is right now.” Sam huffs, a relaxed grin on his face. “Should we tell him?”  
At that Sam’s face falls and he pulls back further. But then he must see the disappointment in Nick’s face (whose heart rate had ratcheted up a notch at the thought that one wrong sentence could ruin this and make Sam pull away) and he reaches out with his hand again, holds Nick’s gently. “Not yet. Not because I’m ashamed or anything, but… he’s got a lot to deal with right now. It’d be hard for him to understand that this could happen like this. He might say something stupid, which he’d really regret later on. I’d just like to keep extra stress to a minimum.”  
Nick nods and holds onto Sam’s hand. “Of course. Is there anything I can do to help?”  
Sam smiles brilliantly at that and points to the book Nick had taken from his hand earlier on. “Well, I’ve been looking for something to ward dreams. If you want to help…” Nick jolts slightly at that, the topic too close for comfort, but this does explain Dean’s tired and sad state during the mornings.  
“O- Of course”, Nick stumbles slightly, but Sam doesn’t seem to have heard it, or at least he doesn’t react.  
“Write down any ritual you can find. Maybe we’ll find a way this time.”   
Nick nods sharply and gets to work, his lips still tingling slightly from the soft kiss he had had with Sam earlier.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: graphic sexual assault, rape, forced orgasm, unrealistic sex bc ~dreamscape~, violence, victim blaming, past Sam/Lucifer

Dean had stumbled back in at some point during the night and the next morning the interaction between him and Sam had been strained, but calmer. After Sam had presented the findings of their long late night research, Dean had noticeably perked up. Although they couldn’t be sure if any of this would work for what they were planning to do, Dean had spent most the day in his room, painting sigils to the walls, walking around with paint-splattered fingers after he had finally been done. He had whistled while preparing lunch and if Sam hadn’t been a bit wary and anxious the closer it came to nightfall, this would have been a perfectly normal day at the Bunker, nearly as if nothing had actually happened. When Dean was in the room, Sam kept a careful distance from Nick, but when they were alone Sam got a bit closer than necessary. If their hands touched while they reached for something, Sam let the touch linger for a heartbeat or two and Nick knows he was searching and reveling in the difference between him and Lucifer, between body-warm and arctic-cold, between the constant electrical hum of power and a heartbeat pumping blood.   
Nick enjoys it, he truly does, but he can’t hide from the impatience that has started to gnaw at him any longer. Every touch reminds him of what he desperately wants and can’t yet have. And until Sam says yes - and Nick knows that’s the long con, has to be or its not going to happen - Nick just wants a little bit more. The forbidden fruit and its terrible temptation. But with Lucifer still out and about wearing Castiel like an ill-fitting suit and Sam not any closer to actually saying yes to Lucifer than he was in the beginning, even as Nick is slowly sinking his claws into him, he is just itching to finally draw some blood and give in, just a little bit. Thankfully the bunker gives him the opportunity to do this without messing everything up. Now, Sam and Dean just have to play their role.  
The night after Dean finishes warding his room is too early, because while Dean goes to bed early and wary, Sam stays in the living room, his laptop set up and a movie playing on it. When Nick passes by him, hair still shower wet, Sam waves him to his side. He’s a bit nervous when he asks Nick to spend the night out here with him, keeping an ear on Dean in case he has anymore dreams or nightmares. Nick agrees, pulls a chair up and Sam puts on one of the Star Trek movies. Nick’s always been more of a Star Wars fan himself. Palpatine and his flawless manipulation of Anakin had fascinated him especially when he got to rewatch it in the hospital ante Lucifer, but Star Trek is fine too. Sam’s arm slung around the back of his chair, allowing Nick closer so they can both see the small screen well is definitely Nick’s main attraction. It is quiet in the night and when Dean comes out of his room at 3 am, closing his door quietly. When he walks past the kitchen, he breaks into a smile as he turns towards them. They had heard the door open and moved away from each other, so Dean’s probably not any the wiser.  
“It works”, Dean says and his eyes are the most focused they have been in a while. Sam breaks into a big grin too and even Nick can’t help but be touched by the happiness around him as well. If Dean sleeps well, then that is only profitable for him right now.  
His big chance happens the night after. With Dean giving them the green light that everything was okay, Nick and Sam managed to get some late night sleep in and were relatively well rested the next day. The day passes with more research and Dean a lot more relaxed than he’s been in a while. Unfortunately, that means that he suddenly wants to use this energy to help them research, which means their day is spent with quite a lot of distance between them. Still, even Dean has to go to the toilet at some point and Sam uses that moment to grab Nick’s face and plant one on him. “We did it!” he mumbles, hope and happiness radiating through him. Nick smiles back, but internally hes rolling his eyes. Just because this worked out, doesn’t mean that they will manage to find a way to stop all of this.   
Using Dean’s good mood Nick invites him to a victory nightcap. Now, Dean had no idea about the hangover cure Nick had prepared in his own room as he couldn’t afford to drink himself to unconsciousness as Dean hopefully would, nor about the spell he had put on Dean’s glass to increase the potency of alcohol drunk from it. The men of letters really had a spell for pretty much everything and it felt good to put some of it to use. At first Nick had thought about maybe using drugs or sleeping pills to ensure that Dean would not wake up to disturb his plans for the night, but there was no way that nobody had tried to drug Dean before, not pretty as he was, and the risk that Dean might recognize the signs or the taste had been too big. Instead Nick built on this, hoping that the general elation and happiness Dean felt at being able to sleep again as well as the high-shelf whiskey Nick had purchased on one of the last grocery runs he was allowed to accompany Dean on would hide the fact that Dean would get a lot drunker a whole lot faster. They start with beers until Dean is relatively relaxed, then Nick switches to whiskey. They talk about hunts Dean’s been on and Nick mumbles praise and awe when Dean talks about the people he saved, the monsters he took down, pouring honey into his ears as he pours more whiskey into his glass. Out of all the lies he’s told so far, those taste the worst as the pass his lips, but in the end it works out well. He has to help Dean up at some point, guide him to his room and send him to bed. Then, stomach queasy, Nick had hurried to his own room, cursing the fact that the hallways stretch and twirl around him. Despite his best attempts to drink slower than Dean, Nick knew that in order not to blow his cover he still has to pretend o at least drink a little bit and his tolerance wasn’t particularly high. But while his magical detoxifier looks even more revolting than the glass with dream root does, it seems to set in pretty fast. He still feels a bit queasy when he gets up to grab Sam’s hair from his desk and suddenly he’s glad that he managed to get it from Sam’s brush and didn’t have to resort to the shower drains, because his stomach heaves at the idea of accidentally ingesting one of Dean’s pubes… or the dreams he might take part of them. After stirring it in, he places the tincture on his nightstand and gets up for one last walk through the Bunker.  
Dean is snoring loudly, clearly passed out good, and Sam’s room is quiet. Only after Nick places his ear against it, he manages to hear soft and relatively relaxed breathing. Nick lets out a breath of relief as he walks away - he doesn’t think his liver would survive having to go through the same process with Dean again. He creeps back to his room and after drinking a little bit of water and breathing deep, allowing his stomach to settle again - damn alcohol - he undresses and sits down on his bed. After swirling the dream root in his glass to mix it up again, he pulls his blankets up and downs the glass as he’s sinking down into his pillow.   
For a moment he gags, because this tastes so much worse than he expected and then just as suddenly he’s sitting up again. It’s his room, but there’s also something off about it. It’s darker and when he twists around he sees his body still lying on the bed. He grins as he spots the little tent under the blanket. If killing someone in a dream ends in their death in real life, Nick is excited to see if a Little Death will also translate into reality. For now he just wants to be with Sam.  
He imagines his room and suddenly he’s in it. Sam is reading a book on the table and he jumps as Nick suddenly appears. A soft ripple goes through the dream as the room darkens as well. How sweet of Sam to set an atmospheric lightning.  
“I couldn’t sleep”, Nick says and leans against the door as if this was the most normal thing in the world. He’s been in Sam’s room before, but only once so far and if Nick’s being honest this second time is even more delicious than the last. Even now that they were dating, most of it happened in the library in the middle of the night. In order to keep Sam’s trust, Nick knew he had to pretend to care about Sam’s boundaries… Now… not so much. As he takes in the scene, Nick can barely stop himself from rolling his eyes. The good little nerd even dreams about research. It’s high time Nick gives him something else to dream about.  
Sam swallows hard and looks around the room, still confused and maybe a bit scared as Nick pushes off the door frame and walks across the room to him. “How about you?” Nick prompts and sits down on the chair in front of Sam’s table. He’s a lot more bold than he is normally and that translates to a grin on his face.   
Sam seems a bit uncomfortable, but he shakes himself out of it somehow, probably the fog of dream slowly laying over him or just good old Sam, heart of gold, always looking for the best in people. “I’m… I’m fine. Nick, uh, why are you here? Are you okay?”  
Nick darts his tongue out, remembering the kiss Sam had pressed onto his lips, just grabbed his face and pulled him in and he sees Sam’s eyes fixate on them. “Well… I just couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He reaches out carefully, places his hand on Sam’s and even though Sam grows taunt under his touch, he doesn’t pull back.  
“Nick, I…” Sam chokes off again as Nick trails his finger up his arm, eyes frozen to the point of contact as if it was a snake slithering slowly upwards, ready to sink its teeth in and release its venom.  
“Come on”, Nick whines. “I know you liked it. I know you’d like some other things as well.” His lips spread further, a hungry grin that stretches his face and reveals his teeth and there’s not a hint of sweetness in any of it, just hunger. Sam looks back up at him, his whole boy language a clear rejection, a “I’m sorry, but not yet, not now, I want to take this slow” like a virgin in the backseat with her first boyfriend and his wandering hands, but when he sees the grin, he freezes.  
Nick feels rage bubble in his belly and he clamps his hand down, smacking Sam’s elbow against the table and pinning him there. “Stop pretending you don’t want this. I know you liked it when he made you his bitch.”  
He reaches out with his other hand and buries it in Sam’s hair, a cruel mockery of the few times Sam had allowed him to touch it, gently picking a small tangle out of it or run his fingers through it while they researched or during that night while they watched Star Trek, and Sam freezes. “Nick, I-” he pleads, but Nick just yanks him up and then the dream starts doing some of the work for him, filled by Sam’s own fear and suddenly they are on the bed, Sam pinned under Nick and Nick takes the invitation for what it is. He grinds down against Sam hard, his zipper scrapping against jean before he spreads Sam’s legs further with his knees, his hands moving up under Sam’s flannel, resting against taunt, twitching muscles.  
“What?” Nick bites when Sam tries to pull away, tries to - finally - fight, and this might be his dream, but it is Nick’s playing field, so he isn’t worried. He actually likes the way Sam starts wiggling underneath him, especially since he’s completely powerless to change anything about what’s going to happen. “Playing hard to get? You know, Lucifer told me everything when he got out of the cage. All the fun you two had down there.” Nick is swinging blindly with this, combines the fact that Sam told him that Lucifer tortured him, with the fact that Sam wants to take it slow, flinches when Nick moves too fast and Sam’s choked gasp is confirmation enough.   
“Nick, please-” Sam trails off in a whimper when Nick backhands him and then he has to get out of those jeans, because he’s getting seriously uncomfortable here. He opens the zipper and Sam just whimpers, frozen underneath him while Nick somehow manages to get out of his pants and underwear. Yup, he loves this. Nobody ever pulled a muscle in a wet dream or truly had to worry about clothes and positions or any of that. It’s just this, his arousal, Sam’s fear, the ability to get exactly what he wants and it makes Nick feel heady. Now Sam’s completely frozen, eyes fixed between Nick’s legs and Nick grins.  
“You like what you see?” And suddenly the dream morphs again and then Sam is naked and the sound of a finger snap echoes through the room in between Sam’s labored breaths and that’s when Sam screws his eyes shut and starts speaking in Enochian.  
Nick knows he shouldn’t understand it, but thanks to the weird dream logic underlying this whole thing he knows what Sam is saying. “Please not again”, he begs. “Please don’t wear his face. I’ll be good, I swear, I promise, just don’t pretend to be him, not anymore.” And god, that’s adorable, Sam thinks he’s Lucifer again. Well, Nick’s not going to dispel those misconceptions of his, at least not now. He might even be able to use that trust Sam seems to put in him later on, but for now, he’s too damn horny to think about how he can include that in his plans. Instead, he decides to play along, even though it’s blasphemous. But then, all of this is.  
“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy”, he whispers, sees Sam shudder at the nickname. He doesn’t know if his words come out Enochian as well, too caught up to care, but he thinks they might, as he bends down to trail his tongue along Sam’s very warm neck - or is Nick just cold right now? The dream could be warping them both and since Sammy thinks he’s Lucifer… - and he moans with delight at the hiss Sam lets out, at the way Sam tries to flinch away, but doesn’t actually seem to be able to move. “Don’t you miss this vessel? I know you like Cas too, but this one… oh you know it intimately. That makes it better, doesn’t it?” The words keep coming, his fantasies changing quickly and the way Sam freezes reward enough.  
Then he reaches down, the same finger that slithered across Sam’s arm now trailing over his chest and down. Sam is shaking underneath him, shivering from cold or fear or both, every muscle taunt and if Nick wasn’t already on the edge this would bring him there. Then finally he reaches Sam’s crotch, tickles his fingers through his pubic hair and he could already feel it against his grinding hips, the way Sam reacted to the touch, that he’s no longer fully limp and when Nick closes his fingers around Sam’s cock it actually jumps. “Oh, I can see that you missed this.”  
Sam finally shakes his head, moans a No, No, No under his breath, when Nick jerks him roughly. But his body, his body is telling him yes, Nick thinks and fights to keep down a giggle. “Hmmm, I’ve heard about your newest development as well. Falling in love with him? After all I did to you wearing his face? I mean I knew you were pathetic, but that pathetic?” He pauses and smiles, thinks about the smile he used to give to Sarah a long time ago, before Lucifer, a fond, small thing and a whimper escapes Sam’s throat. “I didn’t think you loved me that much that you are willing to settle for my sloppy seconds.”  
A sob tears through Sam, but then he locks eyes with Nick, despite the fear there’s also something underneath - strength of a level Nick hadn’t anticipated. “I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.” Then he forces a smile, weak and shaky, but enough to make Nick want to smash his face in, as he grits out the next words. “Who knows, maybe Nick will be there right beside me as I tear your heart out.”  
Nick can’t fight back a laugh, it bubbles out of him and drips like poison on Sam pinned beneath him. “I like your gumption. It’s never going to happen though and you know that. You’re mine.”  
Before Sam can reply again, Nick presses his lips against Sam’s, sinks his tongue into his mouth - not at all like the relatively chaste kisses they shared before - while his hand keeps twisting and stroking. Sam’s breath stutters when Nick pulls back again and again Sam’s eyes focus on his lips, so he smacks them, lets his tongue taste them. “Hmmm, I’m wondering… how different did it feel to kiss him than it does to kiss me. Warmer, of course, but… what else? Does he taste different?”  
“Scre- Screw you. He’s nothing like you.” For a second something flickers through Sam’s eyes, uncertainty and fear, more delicious than before even when it was raw animal instinct, because Nick can nearly hear the doubt that just arose in Sam’s mind.  
“How can you be so sure?” And Nick knows he has to finish this, has to finish him off too before he’ll completely lose control of this dream, so he presses his own cock against Sam’s and starts jerking both of them. Sam’s dick feels like an iron poker next to his icicle and it’s quite literally the hottest thing Nick’s ever felt. “I was in him too. You know how absolutely my touch corrupts.” Sam bucks under him at that, maybe trying to get away, maybe just his body trying to escape the relentless icy friction of Nick’s hand, but Nick doesn’t let him up, just rubs him faster. “Maybe he learned to love you through my eyes. Or maybe he just hates you like you deserve. After all you killed his family. Maybe he’s fucking his own hand hard right now wishing it was your skull instead.” Nick can feel the stutter of his hips becoming irregular and god, he’s so close, so close, so close. For a moment he wants to call it quits now, let himself go, but the dream urges his mouth on, the shame and fear on Sam’s face is not yet enough. “Maybe he just knows that the only thing you’re good for is to be a vessel for my needs.”  
And Sam lets out a hurt whine at that (because he knows it’s the truth!) and that’s when Nick comes with a groan. He forces himself to ride it out, forces himself to keep his eyes open to drink as much of Sam’s fear in and when his eyes meet Sam’s, Sam squeezes his shut quickly, but the shame is still radiating from him in his entire body language. Nick holds onto the dream for dear life and his hand moves faster, the whole process a lot more slippery now and Sam is flinching and trembling, breaths choked and shaky and then he comes too.  
Then Nick is suddenly torn back, thrown out of the dream away from Sam’s hot body and into sticky sheets, which probably means that Sam woke up. He reaches down and swirls his fingers through his cum, satisfied smile spreading across his face in the post-orgasm haze. Well, this little experiment went more than a little successful.  
After quickly whipping himself down and tossing the paper tissues away, knowing he’ll have to be smart to hide the evidence tomorrow, Nick burrows back under his covers and doses off with a smile on his lips. He sleeps well, deeper and more satisfied than he has in a while.   
In the morning he strips his sheets, groans loudly as he walks out of his room, stumbles a bit - just in case somebodies watching, so he can play the “I just woke up after drinking way too much last night and my sheets simply stink like too much alcohol sweat”, but there’s nobody there - until he gets to the washing room and tosses his linen in one of the machines. While straightening he can see that one of them has come to a halt now and curious he opens the door. It’s the covers from Sam’s bed and Nick can’t help but grin at that sight.  
Good to know he wasn’t the only one who enjoyed last night. He hangs them up, whistling softly. Nobody could accuse him of being a bad boyfriend after all. Still smiling he makes his way to the kitchen and prepares some breakfast. Dean is most likely still passed out in his room and in for the hangover of a century when he wakes up, but Nick’s thoughts circle back to Sam. During his walk through the bunker he hasn’t yet stumbled upon Sam and after a he prepares a hearty omelet with extra bacon (if he was hungover, his stomach might not look forward to the greasy salty deliciousness as much as is it does, but now he just wants to regain the strength last night’s activities cost him) as well as a smaller vegetable omelet for Sam. After circling through the library and finding it empty as well, he finally walks up to Sam’s room and knocks softly.   
“Sam?” For a moment it’s quiet from inside, then a “Yeah?” sounds through the door. It’s shaky and Nick has to quickly ban any and all dirty thoughts from his mind, because he’s got a plan and his body is not going to ruin this for him, dammit, no matter how delicious those memories are.  
Nick cracks open the door and Sam is staring at him wide-eyed, but a smile forced onto his lips, sitting on the chair as he had in his dream. A book is open in front of him, but it’s balanced weirdly and from his position Nick can see a small notebook wedged underneath it. Sammy’s diary? He’s really making it hard for Nick to pretend like last night hadn’t happened. He desperately wants to read Sam’s whining about his bad, bad dream, wants to drag the words from the page and spit them back at him when the time is ripe, but for now he just leans against the door frame like he had when he just appeared in Sam’s room. He can see Sam stiffen at that, but quickly trying to push the reaction down.  
“I made breakfast. Do you want any?” Sam swallows hard, but then forces a nod.   
“I’ll… I’ll come to the kitchen in a bit. Th- Thank you.”  
Nick lets his eyes soften and then carefully and slowly walks across the room, takes in the fresh paint smell and the sigils decorating the wall as he does so, and instead just watches Sam grows stiffer with every step he takes. “Are you okay?” He lets worry drip from his voice this time, forehead creased and shoulders slumping forward, even as he can hear Lucifer laugh in his ears.   
For a moment Sam doesn’t answer and his eyes follow every one of Nick’s moves again as they had when Nick first arrived in the bunker and damn, Nick did kind of miss it. This undivided attention Sam pays to him, only of course now he actually deserves it. Then finally Sam forces a nod, his head jerking up and down. It would look fake even if Nick had no idea what’s going on.   
So he steps even closer, leans forward against the table and gently reaches out to rest his hand on top of Sam’s. “If there’s anything I can do-” Nick doesn’t get any further mumbling his empty platitudes, because Sam flinches, chair scraping over the floor as his body lurches back. For a moment it’s silent, only Sam’s fast, terrified breathing filling the air.  
“I’m sorry”, falls out of both their mouths at the same time and Nick steps back, knowing that he’ll have to give Sam his space now and Sam’s eyes track him, but then with another soft shudder, he slowly peels himself off the wall, letting out a stuttering breath and forcing another weak smile on his lips. Nick thinks it might be the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.  
“I… I think I’ll need another ten minutes, but if you want you can already start eating without me.”  
Nick nods and tries to smile reassuringly. “If you want to talk…” Nick lets it trail off, waits for Sam’s response and Sam lets out a strangled gasp. His eyes are glassy and growing redder by the second and Nick wishes nothing more than to hear what goes on in his messed up brain, because sure there is pain and fear, but there is also shame radiating like a beacon from Sam.  
Then Sam nods and lets his head fall, hair covering his face, but Nick still spots the tear that twinkles down to the ground. “Thanks.”  
So Nick finally turns around, lets a small smile creep onto his lips - this is going so much better than he expected - but before he can open the door Sam mumbles something again. “Why are you so kind to me?”  
Nick freezes in his step and he’s glad he’s not looking at Sam right now. Even Sammy-boy, blinded by idealism, would see the incredulity in his eyes. Instead he takes a slow breath, trying to keep his voice as level as possible, because right now all he wants to do to is jump, clicking his heels together and pump his fist in the air and throw his head back and laugh, but he has to control his emotions, and then replies slow and carefully. “Because… I care about you. You took me in, after everything I’ve done.” Then he plasters a smile on his face and turns around. “Even though the most evil thing in the world possessed me, used my body to commit unspeakable evils, you see me for me.”  
Sam’s eyes grow impossibly even more moist and hurt and he flinches at the words as if Nick had hit him and then he nods. “I’ll see you later”, he chokes out and slumps down on his chair, finally turning away from Nick, his spine rigid and a tremor shaking his body. Nick only hovers for a second, then he walks out of the door, a grin finally blooming on his lips. This was the most productive night he had in a long time.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: manipulation, guilt tripping, victim blaming, short mention of sexual violence and violence

Sam never comes to breakfast and just texts Nick that he’s not feeling well after all and he’ll try to recover by sleeping more. Nick puts the plate down in front of his room and knocks, but Sam doesn’t answer. The next few days, Nick doesn’t know if Sam even leaves his room, or if he has just gotten really good at avoiding Nick. Either way, despite lurking as much as possible he never finds him in the library or the kitchen and he doesn’t even manage to catch him in the hallways either. It’s getting old quick and Nick has had more than enough. Sam locking himself away from him kind of makes it incredibly hard to break the cutie into many, many tiny, sniffling pieces and if that doesn’t happen, Lucifer won’t get his yes and that means Nick will have failed. Dean’s stink eye has increased, but that might just be because Sam is in pain now, which means protective brother is in full attack dog mode, because he hasn’t threatened him yet or slit his throat in his sleep. That makes Nick think Sam somehow convinced him that Nick hadn’t done anything to him, that he’s just tired but _I’m fine, Dean, it’s nothing, I just need some time for myself, haven’t slept that well, I just need some space._ Pathetic. And boring. Nick spent his him-time in the library, doing some research that Sam might like - he needs a bit more material to get close to him again after all, maybe something worthy of an excited: Oh I found this ritual to trap an angel and roast us some hot wings, but who knows if its enough for Lucifer, an archangel (probably not) - as well as some research that’s just for him - he hadn’t known that the men of letters have some rather graphic texts about old magic rituals, some of which involved flaying a person alive, another death by thousands and thousands of tiny needle pricks and other really gruesome things and just the right thing to make Nick a bit more excited to wake up in the morning. Now Dean has finally left the bunker for a supply run, after casting one last worried glance at Sam’s still closed door, only opened rarely during dinner time and for quick showers and book exchanges, before Sam squirreled back away into his hidey-hole. And Nick has enough of that. Since he was pretty sure Sam had also made good use of their dream interference protection in his own room, Nick had been too afraid to use another dose of dream root, afraid that the warning might potentially interfere and give him away. But then he had known from the beginning that this was probably a one time thing. And as delicious as the memory of it is, there’s still too much time in the day for him now that Sam stays away from him. It’s boring and it certainly gives him way to much time to plot his next steps, but way too little to finally set them into motion. Until now. He only waits long enough for the purr of the Impala to fade into the distance, before he goes up to the door and lifts his hand to knock.  
It seems to take an eternity until the door finally opens, Sam standing there with bags under his eyes as if he hadn’t been sleeping well - and Nick knew about that, heard Sam’s cries of terror and the sobbing following waking up, because Nick had been lurking in the hallways at night, needing to at least catch a glimpse of what his actions had done to Sam if he separated himself from him like that - and for a moment they’re both silent. Then Sam breaks the quiet with a soft sigh. “What do you want?”  
“I just… I wanted to ask if you’re okay?”  
Sam’s lips quirk, a sad, dim, pained uptick of his lips, crumbling as quickly as it appeared and he shakes his head. “Do you need anything from me, or can it wait until Dean’s back?”  
Nick let’s his gaze sink, mumbles a “I just wanted to check in on you. You’ve been… weird those past few days” and he doesn’t have to look up to know that Sam’s feeling guilty again.  
“I just… I haven’t been sleeping well”, Sam finally confesses and Nick lifts his head again, needs to watch the way shame starts to color Sam’s cheeks as he struggles and fails to keep eye contact and wow, Sam truly is the perfect picture of a blushing maiden ravished. It makes Nick want to grab him again, pull him into a kiss, take it again as he had in the dream and see if he would struggle harder against Nick than he did Lucifer, or if the conditioning that Sam had learned in the cage would also bleed through in his waking hours. He bites his tongue and reminds himself that he has to stay in control. He remembers the way Lucifer had burned around him and how much worse it could still get. He’s had his fun. Now it’s time to get back to work.  
“Is it because… of what you told me? What… what Lucifer did to you?” A shudder runs through Sam and he makes a noise like a wounded animal. It is so soft and broken, that it would probably move anybody to compassion… well anybody except Nick and Lucifer. “Is it because of what… what we did?”  
Nick quickly puts on the mask of the concerned possible boyfriend, who’s wondering if his crush is having a big gay panic over a kiss when emotions were running high, and reaches out again and as expected Sam flinches away. And that’s his cue. Action! Nick bites his lips and lets them quiver. He takes a stumbling step back and then whirls around, rushes to the kitchen, his feet falling hard as he stumble-walks as if he has a stomach ache and he just needs to get away.  
He can hear Sam following him pretty close behind and so he curls himself into a corner, wraps his arms around his legs and buries his face. The footsteps pause, Sam probably hovering in front of the door, guilt clear on his face and he should be, he should feel guilty, because honestly, what kind of fuck-up dreams about the person they love hurting them like that? What kind of pervert gets off on it?  
Nick can feel a grin spread across his face and he’s glad he’s hiding it from sight. Then finally soft steps come closer. Nick starts whipping back and forth, toes to hells, his shoulders shaking.  
“Nick?” Sam mumbles, his voice shaky and weak and Nick can hear him crouch down. Nick lets another shudder pass through him and makes a pathetic sniffling sound. It sounds fake to him, but he can feel the air shift as Sam flinches away as if burned, can nearly taste the guilt that Sam is exuding. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… scare you?” The reassurance ends in a question and besides compassion and guilt, there’s also confusion.  
Nick sniffles again and thinks about how it would feel if he fucked up and Lucifer left him again. He needs the cold terror that smothers his body as he begins his plea. “Nothing… nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t scare me, but… how am I supposed to interpret this? We kiss and back then you seemed to like it, but then, just a few days later, you go out of your way to avoid me and you… you won’t talk to me and you won’t look at me and… I’m losing you. I’m losing everything and I can’t do this again, Sam, not again, not because of Him. This is because of Him, right? This is Lucifer’s fault?” Sam doesn’t answer, but the way he freezes up, breath catching and hands starting to tremble. “This is because I was his vessel. Because of the things he made me do. Because he made me kill so many people and there’s so much blood on my hands that I can never wash clean. Hell, unlike you I can’t even hide it.” His hand gestures to his face with an angry jerk, indicating all the scars that are still there, still visible - and they will be until Lucifer sees fit too reward him. “I thought… when I found you, I thought that my past didn’t have to define me anymore.” Sam flinches again, stumbles back a bit in his crouched position, the sudden movement nearly enough to send him sprawling to the ground. Nick looks up now, meets Sam’s tear filled gaze through the curtain of his hair falling into his face. “And you make me believe that I’m not broken because of Him. That I… that I can be good, that my touch isn’t poison, that there is hope for me… I thought… I thought that if you could love me, despite it all, then that was the biggest proof that I could be saved.” There’s tears rolling down Nick’s face now, streams of them, his voice breaking, his arms shaking and suddenly Sam is there, on top of him, arms wrapped around him, pulling him close, despite the shivers that run through his body as he presses himself flush against Nick. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”  
Nick lets himself tremble and shake a bit longer, then he relaxes into it, lets the anxiety flood out as a smile spreads over his face, hidden in Sam’s neck. And the Academy Award goes to…


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: violence, torture, murder, major character death, threats of sexual assault

After the guilt trip Nick pulled in the kitchen, things seem perfect. Sam apologized, said that it hadn’t been Nick’s fault and treated him like a fragile doll for the next few days. Soft touches, constant reassurances, lots of physicality even if it seemed to repulse Sam at first and even if Nick felt a bit too much like a pampered pet dog it was also good. It meant Nick had gotten to have his fun and not ruined everything… the opposite actually. He still wasn’t quite sure how he would get Sam to say yes to Lucifer, but he’d find a way. Maybe he could find - or somehow fake - a ritual that would allow an archangel to defeat everything, if only He had access to his one true vessel. That added guilt might be enough to get Sam to finally bow under the pressure. Dean for his part hadn’t commented on the change in behavior yet. Of course, he must know that something was going on between the two by now, their hours in the library growing even longer and Sam often sticking to Nick like glue, as if he could only be sure Nick was Nick when he touched him and felt that the body underneath his fingers was warm, but he still seemed preoccupied with something else. His eye rings had returned in full force and it was clear that something was bothering him in his sleep again. He spent more time in the bottle and still refused to talk about it. They had more important things to do, he said. Nick couldn’t agree more. Then their tenuous silence was interrupted one evening by a violent outburst from Dean, who was tired as hell of Sam’s bullshit mothering and to take it somewhere else and that he was fine, he was fucking fine and he could handle this, goddammit Sammy, finally commencing in flying bottles and smashed doors and then the howling of the impala as she tore out of the garage and down the street. By the time Nick found Sam in the main hall, cleaning away the broken shards, the alcohol already seeped into his jeans and flannel cuffs, Nick was seriously tempted to thank God’s sister for her interference. At least it kept Dean out of his hair. After he helped Sam clean up, whipping the floor from sticky alcohol, before sitting down with Sam on the living room table, he did send a quick thank you up to her either way. Even if she hadn’t intended it this way, it helped him more than anything else could. “Was this about the Darkness again?” Sam huffs out air and nods, his whole body slumping towards Nick. “Yeah… apparently she’s been getting more… insistent with Dean. Our wardings kept her out for a bit, but after… Dean thinks she doesn’t like being locked out of anything. She treats Dean like he’s an interesting puzzle piece. And since she doesn’t need sleep or rest or any of it, she can toy with him during the night and destroy whole towns in the day.” “Huh, I didn’t know it was that bad.” “We… I didn’t tell you. Dean… it’s hard for him to deal with this. Amara and he… there’s some weird connection thing going on and it terrifies him to no end. I wish there was a way to finally end this, but… well, the Darkness is God’s sister. There’s nobody with that kind of juice.” Nick lets the statement hover for a moment, as if he’s mulling it over in his mind. “I mean…” he quickly stops himself and looks away as if ashamed. “No, sorry, forget it, it’s stupid anyway.” Sam perks up a bit and he grabs Nick’s hand, holds it gently. “No such thing as a stupid idea. Maybe it’ll help.” The hope in Sam’s voice is cute and for a moment Nick wishes it could be this easy. But just planting that seed might also help, Sam’s guilt and Nick’s encouragement the perfect fertilizer to help it grow big and strong. “Well… I’ve been reading a lot about angels and powers and well, vessels do determine how much of their strength an angel can use. And if… if Lucifer was able to use His true vessel…” He lets guilt flood his features as he leaves the sentence unfinished and as he expected Sam pushes away. “No. No, I’m not gonna… I won’t. You don’t know what it cost me…” Sam is breathing hard, stumbling back and shaking. Nick reaches out for him, tries to grab for Sam’s hand, but Sam doges him. “I know. You told me. Which is why I said it’s a stupid idea. But maybe… maybe there’s a way to ward you before it happens? Make you able to expel him after…” Sam’s voice grows hard. “Nick, please… drop it, okay? There has to be another way.” Then just as suddenly Sam tumbles like a puppet whose strings have been cut and he slides down the wall and curls up, cool floor and cold wall sending shivers through his body, as he begins to sob, mumbling begs and pleas under his breath. Nick drops from the bench too and slides up to Sam, not yet touching him. “Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you and I’m sorry that I did. If there’s another way, we’ll find it.” He lets his hands hover until Sam tilts into him again and then he helps Sam up. Sam is slumping and he’s leaning even more into Nick than usual. After they manage to stand up, Nick decides to not guide Sam towards the library, but instead to his room. A tremor has started to run through Sam and Nick is pretty sure that the terror of imagining Lucifer inside him again plus the cold walls did their best to sap all of Sam’s strength that was still there after the fight with Dean and the day filled with research. Sam doesn’t say anything against it, only waits patiently while Nick opens the door to his bedroom. Nick hasn’t been in here since the dream root instance, Sam saying he wants to take this slow. A soft shudder runs through Sam as Nick lowers him to the bed, but his touch is warm and gentle and soon Sam relaxes again. After Sam is sitting on the bed, Nick slowly backs up. As Sam bends to untie his shoes, Nick turns to leave. “Nick… wait”, Sam begs, his voice shaking and weak. “Could you… would you… It’s totally fine if you don’t wanna, but would you mind staying here? Just a bit longer?” “Sure. Anything you need.” Sam frowns a bit at that and Nick quickly continues. “Don’t worry, I’m doing this because I want to. It’s not a chore to stay. Especially when there’s such a smart, attractive, nice man here…” At this he turns around to the mirror and winks at his image. “…and you’re not that bad either”, he calls over his shoulder and he can nearly hear Sam’s eye roll. “Asshole”, he mutters and Nick smiles as he turns around again. “So, do you want me to stay?” Sam nods and then finally kicks of one of his shoes and gets ready to work on the other. His fingers are still shaking a bit and that makes it harder than it should be. Nick traces a hand down from Sam’s biceps to his fingers and stills them. “I can help you. You’ve had a hard day.” Sam tenses up and as much as Nick dislikes kneeling in front of Sam like this (if anything, it should be the other way around), the fact that he’s still afraid of him, even in this position, makes Nick very happy. As he unties Sam’s shoe for him, he’s suddenly thinking about Kintsugi. His wife had been interested in those bowls, always raving about the beauty of something broken being fixed and becoming something much more beautiful. Now that Nick has Sam in this state, he can finally understand the appeal. Sam broken into tiny pieces, ready to accept Lucifer, who would fill the cracks with grace and merge with him, turning Sam, the plain old bowl, into something truly magnificent. They finally get the shoe off and after peeling off his socks, Sam starts working on the buttons of his flannel. Nick can’t help but feel a thrill run down his back, but he still forces himself up and waits until Sam shakes his flannel off, dropping it next to his boots that stink like beer. He brings his wrists up to his face and sniffs, then lets them sink with a shrug as if he’s judged the smell as not that bad, or at least not bad enough to go wash himself now. With just a T-Shirt and his bare feet a shiver runs through Sam and he quickly moves his blanket to cover himself. “Thank you”, Sam mumbles again. “You really think we can stop all this somehow?” Nick smiles. “Of course. I mean, from what I know, you guys stopped a couple of apocalypses. I’m sure you can stop another one.” Sam grins back and then he yawns. “You should try and get some sleep.” He gets up again, while Sam buries under his blankets, still wearing his jeans. As Nick steps up to Sam to pull the blanket all the way over his body and tuck his feet in, Sam’s hand suddenly darts out and grabs his wrist. “Would you… would you like to stay tonight? Not… Not for anything more, but I need…” Warmth. The constant reminder that Nick is Nick and not Lucifer. Of course. A shudder runs through Nick, the knowledge of how far they’ve come since the beginning sending a thrill down Nick’s spine. “Well, I have been told I’m a great cuddler, so…” Sam smiles as Nick unties his own shoes, shrugs off his sweater and slides into the relatively big bed on the side that Sam has left free. They are both still wearing T-Shirts and their jeans and for a moment Nick is tempted to throw the blankets off, pin Sam underneath him and test if it would feel different if he pinned Sam in real life. What stops him is partially the knowledge that if Sam didn’t freeze, there is no way he would be able to hold him down, as well as the fact that he’s unwilling to ruin everything now. He’s so close to the end, he can nearly taste it. So he stays on his side, until Sam reaches over and pulls him a bit closer, intertwining their fingers again, so they face each other. Sam’s shivers slowly subside and soon he’s drifting to sleep. Nick grins and lets himself sink under as well, hand hovering just beside Sam’s throat, nearly close enough to touch. And of course, that’s the night Lucifer decides to visit Nick again. He’s in Castiel’s form again, but even here, Nick can see that it is slowly weakening. “You have to hurry. We don’t have time for you to play house with my vessel.” Lucifer radiates cold and Nick can see his breath fog as he stammers out a reply. “I’m close, Lucifer. He’ll say yes soon, I just know it.” Lucifer’s pulses again and Nick can’t fight down a pathetic whimper of fear as Lucifer glows brighter, anger flaring. “I don’t appreciate what you did to my vessel, even if it was a dream.” “But… but it worked”, Nick stammers and reaches out, clutches to Lucifer’s hand even though it freezes his fingers to the bone, frost bite spreading quickly. “Sam’s putty in my hands now. I’ll just need a few more days.” Lucifer hisses and then closes his eyes, reigns in his power. “I’ll keep this short, because with all the wardings here it is hard for me to reach you, even with the extra connection we forged. Bring him to me as soon as you can.” “I will”, Nick promises and sighs relieved. Then Lucifer retreats and Nick snaps awake. For a moment he’s disoriented, at first because he’s not in his room, and then because the bed beside him is empty. Where the fuck did Sam go? “Tell me this was just a dream”, Sam mumbles, trembling from his position across the room. “A dream… Sam what… what are you talking about?” Nick’s trying to sound clueless - did he talk in his sleep? He feels sick with fear - but he stumbles through the words, knows they are less than believable as panic rises up in him. Lucifer had been so proud just mere moments ago and now… everything is falling apart. “You talk in your sleep. And… and you got really cold all of a sudden. God, I’m so fucking stupid.” Sam let’s out a dry chuckle and he’s pressing against the wall so hard, that Nick is sure he’s gonna break through it any second now. Nick carefully inches to the side of the bed, but Sam trains a gun on him. “Stay where you are. Move and I’ll blow you full of lead.” Nick grits his teeth. Fuck. His eyes dart across the room and his hands are fisting the blanket. He knows he should stay calm, try and diffuse that, but he’s still reeling from the quick change of mood, then he sends out a quick prayer, throws the blanket in the air and darts to the side. Sam fires two times in quick succession and Nick’s ears ring from the loud noise, but he’s not hit, not yet and he throws himself forward, grabs Sam’s head and thrusts it backwards. Then Sam crumbles and Nick lands on top of him, breathing hard as he wrestles the gun from his hands and trains it at the door. If Dean is back… there’s no way he hasn’t heard the shots. He lets ten seconds pass, but when the door doesn’t fly wide open, Nick lets himself slump. He can fix this. He carefully gets up and takes all except one bullet out of the magazine. Enough to maybe shoot Sam in the leg if he came at him, but not enough to kill him if Sam managed to wrestle the gun from him. He throws the remaining ones under the bed, listens to them scatter as they slide over the floor and then he quickly moves through Sam’s drawers. He doesn’t find handcuffs, but he finds a piece of rope and so he sets to tying Sam to the bed, which looks sturdy enough to hold him for at least a little bit. He ties both of his hands to the bed post and then ties Sam’s legs together. That should make it a bit harder for him to kick Nick in the stomach at least. He hopes Sam will stay knocked out long enough for Nick to find a way to make this right. He definitely remembers that Sam is not only amazingly trained, but also 6 feet of muscle and quick reflexes and there is no way, he’ll be able to take him down again if Sam manages to get out. He hurries out of the room and then into Dean’s still empty bedroom. The assholes keeps his weapons hung up on the wall and the duffel always well stocked and Nick quickly finds a pair of handcuffs. At least he’s useful for something now. Nick is tempted to leave him a short message thanking him, but that’d be wasting time. By the time he makes it back to Sam’s room, Sam is thankfully still out and so Nick has no problem slapping the handcuffs on him. Then he goes through Sam’s jean pockets, but beside a piece of papers with research notes, there’s nothing in here. Just to he safe, he also turns Sam’s shoes around and dumps them out. After grabbing Sam’s duffel and dumping the weapons on the closet ground, he stuffs it with a few changes of clothes. Not that Lucifer will need them, after all he can clean and fix any clothes he’s given, but it’s always nice to have a bit of a choice. He also stuffs Sam’s boots in here, unwilling to put them on just now. He thinks back to his research on magic, knowing that there has to be something to knock Sam out for now. Didn’t he read about a cursed object that can put a victim to sleep if a certain word is said in here somewhere? He hurries back to the storage room and now that he can turn on the light, he also sees that it’s a lot bigger than he thought. And it’s also wonderfully labeled. Lucifer Bless the Men of Letters. Finding the curse coin doesn’t take him long at all, and even the word needed to activate the curse is written on the little plague beside it. Somnum. Not particularly creative, but Nick’ll take it. He carefully picks it up, using his T-Shirt sleeve to keep it from touching his bare skin and hurries back to Sam’s bedroom. By now Sam is awake and quite alert again, struggling against his bindings, but unable to get far. His screaming for Dean ceases as Nick enters the room again. “Your brother isn’t here. You scared him away yesterday, remember?” Nick knows it’s impolite to play with his food but he just can’t help it. The way Sam stiffens is just too beautiful. “Why?” Sam bites out, defeat slumping his shoulders. “Why?” Nick huffs out and he knows he’s gonna start monologuing now like a cheap movie villain, but he’s got the time and Sam is trapped like a fly in a spider’s net. Well, at least for the next few minutes. “You don’t understand it at all, do you? Back when Lucifer was with me… the power He made me feel… worse, the ache He left behind. I’m not His destined vessel and when He possessed me, He changed me. When He was in me, I was filled with all His glory and when He left, I was nothing but emptiness. The best I could explain why, is that when He possessed me, his grace, his power, whatever, took something essential from me, because I was never supposed to be His. And when He left, I tried to convince myself that it hadn’t been what I wanted anyway, that… He had manipulated me, or that that emptiness was just part of being human, but… it isn’t. I’d never be this way if you hadn’t let Him out in the first place. So… it is your goddamn duty to say yes, so He can fill me with His grace again. Do you understand that?” “No. No fucking way. I’m not gonna say yes to him, especially not because you’re lonely and pathetic and have a weird hard on for the devil, you bastard”, Sam spits, twists against his bonds as the scope of Nick’s plan seems to sink in. Nick lets him struggle for bit, then he reaches out his hand with the coin in it, making sure it’s not touching his own bare skin as he presses it against Sam’s arm. “Stop this, stop touching me, get away from…” “Somnum.” It works immediately. Sam slumps, energy draining out of him as an unnatural sleep settles over him. Nick pulls away, pockets the coin after wrapping it in a tissue - maybe he’ll use it again later - and gets up. “You’re gonna have to understand that your ideas about free will and informed consent don’t matter anymore. You will say yes. I’ll find a way to make you say yes.” He runs his fingers through Sam’s hair, gives it a hard tug that unfortunately stays without reaction and gets up to walk to a the small closet he had hidden in a while back to grab the push cart that he has seen folded against the wall. He pushes it to Sam, after making another short stop in his room, where he packs everything he might need, and then after undoing his bindings that tie him to the bed, pulls and pushes him onto the cart. After dumping both duffel bags on top, Nick starts pushing it through the Bunker’s hallways. Thankfully the way from Sam’s room to the garage is flat with no steps in the way. Another win for accessibility. The impala is not in the garage, which Nick suspected or he’d have a hole in his head by now, but there are still enough other cars available. Nick grabs a relatively small one where the key is in the ignition and stuffs Sam in the backseat, cuffing his hands to the door and fixing his feet in the same way. He’s gonna be sore as hell when he wakes up, but that’s not Nick’s problem. After starting the car, he checks the tank contents and when he sees that it is relatively empty, he makes his way through the garage, hoping he’ll be able to find some petrol here. At least ten minutes pass until he finally finds some. He’s anxious to get out of here. Dean could return any minute after all and find his brother vanished. Or as it is right now, tied up in a car and Nick a beautiful target for shooting practice, that Dean most certainly does not need. After filling the tank and stuffing both the cart and another refill for the tank as well as the two duffel bags in the trunk - a tight fit, but it works out thankfully - Nick hauls ass out of there. As soon as he gets out on the open road, he relaxes a bit. Sam should sleep for twelve hours straight now, unless Nick releases him earlier with another touch of the coin. But Nick will have to make a short pit stop still before he can hand this over. After getting a little bit away from the bunker, he pulls into a small side street and pulls out the variety of American maps he’s been collecting. He begins with one that pictures all of America and after pulling a few candles, Dave’s hair and a few other ingredients out of his own duffel, he begins the ritual. It takes him three maps and nearly all of his candles until he manages to narrow Dave’s whereabouts down to a small town. The rest will have to be good old fashioned detective work. Or stalking. However, you wanna call it. As fate would have it, the town is pretty much right between Nick’s current whereabouts and his goal and so he presses pedal to the metal and forces the small car as fast as it will go. It’s probably one of those that Dean has been tinkering on, because it purrs down the streets like no car that’s been untouched for a few decades should and Nick can’t bite down a giggle. Dean’s gonna hate that he helped get his bother abducted, no matter how indirectly. It’s five hours later when he finally gets close to the town in which Dave now lives and by now he’s in desperate need of some food and a toilet break. He parks a bit out of town, in a hopefully barely traveled on path, knows that he’ll have to be careful with his car or some good Samaritan might call the police on him before he can deliver Sam to Lucifer. He walks into town and despite it’s relative small size, he wishes he had a better way of tracking Dave. Still, he’ll have to start somewhere and so he begins by wandering through town, throwing glances through windows and searching. After one and a half hours, he’s about ready to give up when he spots a man stumble out of a bar, clearly wasted. His heart jumps in his chest when he recognizes Dave, drunk off his ass. He sends another quick thank you to Lucifer and walks up to him. “Come with me.” Dave does a quick double take, stumbles back. “Stay away from me”, he squeaks. “I just want to be left out of your crazy demon and Satan crap.” “He’s here. And He’s gonna kill everyone you’ve ever gotten in contact with, if you don’t come with me,” Nick threatens and he can see a shiver go through Dave as the warning penetrates through his alcohol daze. Then Dave follows him obediently to the car, not even questioning when Nick hustles him out of town without a quick stop at his own home. As they leave town, Dave starts sobbing quietly, but he keeps walking without any more questions. Nick pulls the coin out of his back pocket as they get close to the car and as expected Dave finally freaks when he sees Sam slumped in the backseat, still a bit blood on his head from when Nick knocked him into the wall and of course the ropes and handcuffs. “Get in.” “No, you’re crazy… Christo”, Dave hisses and Nick grins. Dave falters when his eyes don’t turn black. “Nope, I’m human. And I need your help.” He stretches out his hand and Dave tries to escape, but Nick pins him between himself and the car and Dave’s alcohol-slow and panic-fuzzy struggle quickly subsides when Nick presses the coin to his cheek. “Pam would want you to be strong now. Somnum.” Dave slumps as well and then Nick is heaving him into the car, cuffing his hands and tying them to the door handle as well. “Why can’t just one person do as I say? It’s always like Noooo Nick, please don’t slit my throat and bathe in my blood, I’d like to live. None of you think about what I want. Goddammit”, he rants and he gets back in the driver seat and takes off again. Nick knows he’ll have to stop somewhere to get some energy drinks and some food, or he’s not going to be able to finish this trip, but he’ll need another good place to hide the car first. He parks the car off the highway and walks the ten minutes until he gets close to the shopping strip. He’s changed into a fresh T-Shirt and fixed his hair, so he looks a bit more respectable and grabbed Sam’s wallet from his duffel. There’s more than enough cash in it to pay for some caffeine pills from the drug store and a burger from McDonalds. It doesn’t take him long to procure his desires and then he’s on the way back to the car. On his way back, he’s caught up in fantasies of a wonderful future, a rock catches under his shoe and rolls and suddenly Nick is tilting. He flings his arms out and barely manages to catch himself by holding onto a wall beside him. A sharp pain shoots up his wrist and Nick barely muffles a scream. Rage blinds him for a second and Nick irrationally wants to punch the wall or grab the rock and throw it or take his anger out on his human punching bags. But he’ll have to stay calm for a bit longer. In a few more hours if Sam finally says yes, then Lucifer will definitely heal him and make sure that measly things like eating and staying hydrated or sprained wrists no longer are a problem for Nick. He breathes deeply, rotates his wrist and winces at the pain, but at least it isn’t broken, so he stands back up, shakes it off and then finally gets back to the car and then back on the road after quickly waking Sam and then reapplying the cursed coin. He’s so close. When he finally reaches the warehouse ten hours have passed. Nick is quite shaky by now, exhausted from the long drive, but he knows he doesn’t have to pull through much longer. Soon. He pokes Sam hard and then jabs at his groin for good measure. Sam groans and curls away, but nothing quick enough that would make Nick suspect he’s already awake or on the way to staging a big prison break. He unties him from the door and then heaves him back on the cart and into the warehouse. Even though he had cleared the bodies away, stuffed them into his car again when he had notices that it couldn’t be used any longer and then drove it into a nearby lake, there is still blood on the ground and Nick can still feel the power hum around him. It doesn’t seem as if anybody noticed or cared about what happened here. This time won’t be any different, Nick is sure of it. He takes a deep breath and grins. Lucifer had told him that if he needed him here in person, one person to reactivate the blood would be enough and Nick believes it now. But maybe, he won’t even need it. If Sam plays along. He drops Sam on the ground and after checking his bindings once more, he presses the coin to his cheek and says Somnum again. Sam blinks awake and then startles, trying to pull at his restraints as panic races through him. “Welcome back to the waking. So, how do you feel about saying Yes now?” Sam grunts and even splayed ungracefully on the floor as he is, he just scowls, not showing any fear. Or at least he’s trying to “Ohhhh, that’s cute, you brought me to your cool murder place. Did you google Nice First Date Locations, because if so, I have to tell you it’s not working. So, tell me, what are you going to do? Torture me? Rape me? Or… wait… you can’t really do anything to me. Lucifer has always been a bit of a fan of an unmarred vessel. And last I checked, you might be a gigantic dick, but you aren’t an angel yet. No magic healing powers. So suck it, I’m not saying shit.” Sam’s bravado is cute honestly and while it’s true that seeing Sam like this makes Nick wish he could hurt him, he has to grudgingly admit that Sam is right. Nick can’t touch a hair on his head. Nick has to get permission before he ever gets to touch Sam at all. He sighs and stands up. “You know, when I started this I really hoped that manipulation and guilt tripping would be enough to get the job done. But don’t think I’m afraid to get my hands dirty, cause I’m not. And I always have a backup plan.” He lets the words sink in as he walks back out and grabs Dave, releases him from the coin’s spell and wrangles him into a standing position. Dave is too afraid too move and either way, his hands are tied and Nick just knows he wouldn’t be a match for him. The knife Nick is pressing against his throat might of course also have something to do with it. “Backup plan, do you remember Sam here? Well, he’s the reason your family died, because Lucifer needed to find something to get him to trust me. And now he’s gonna be the reason why you choke to death on your own blood, slowly and painfully, unless he agrees to call Lucifer here. Isn’t that right, Sammy?” “You don’t get to call me that”, Sam spits out, but snaps his jaw shut when Nick digs the knife into Dave’s throat, making him whimper. “So what’s it gonna be? I can stick him and watch him bleed out like a pig, or you beg pretty, pretty please for Lucifer to take you back.” Sam doesn’t move or speak and Nick presses the knife further down. “Well, no answer is also an answer. I hope you like bacon.” Nick herds Dave closer to Sam and then starts sliding the knife through soft flesh. He doesn’t get far, because suddenly Sam is tensing and throwing himself against his and Dave’s legs and Nick looses his footing. Again. Maybe the stone was a damn prophecy. He barely manages to turn the knife down and he can feel it push through flesh as Nick hits the ground. Something crunches as they land, but Nick’s in too much hurt to pay much attention to it. He’s tried to catch himself and landed on his injured wrist. New pain shoots up his arm and he lets out a howl. Sam is moving, twisting, trying to do something and Nick knows that if he gets free now it’ll have all been for nothing. He forces himself up, rolls Dave off Sam, who’s groaning and Nick realizes with grim glee that Dave’s fall was broken with a knee to the face, breaking Sam’s nose and taking a few teeth. Well, that should keep him down at least. Dave’s breathing has grown faint and Nick notices that he managed to push the knife down through his throat. Shit. As much as Nick would like to chew Sam out, he knows he has to act quickly now. He grabs Dave and drags him away a bit to begin painting a small pentagram on top of the bigger old one. He rushes through the summoning words and for a moment he thinks he messed up or Dave was too dead already, when finally a rustle of wings and the drop of temperature lets him know Lucifer is here. He drops Dave’s now lifeless body and falls to his knees. “I’m sorry. He found me out and I… I had to find another way.” Lucifer sneers. “You’ve damaged my vessel.” He bends down to Sam and after a burst of grace, the blood is gone. “Only I get to do that.” Nick mumbles apologies, words stumbling over the other as he spits them out. He’s tried, but what if it wasn’t enough… Fear shakes his body and each movement makes another spike off pain shoot through his injured arm. “I’m sorry for disappointing you”, he finishes and Lucifer glares at him when he finally lifts his gaze. “Well, you did bring him here. That counts for something. Now, sit and watch or go clean up, but be quiet.” Lucifer crouches down, tangles his hands in Sam’s hair and pulls him up. “It’s nice to see you again. You know how I said last time I didn’t actually care to possess you anymore? Well… unfortunately poor Cassie here is wearing a bit thin so there’s been a change of plans. Sometimes being as well endowed as I am is a curse. If I have to keep my powers back, trying to take care of Cas here so I don’t explode him, it’s not going to be easy to defeat Amara. You still want that, right?” Sam only lets out an angry growl, but Lucifer shushes him with a finger against his lips and even though Sam tries to recoil, the second hand still fisted in his hair doesn’t let him move. “You see where I’m going with this. So, come on, stop being a baby. Just say yes, and we can stop that soul eating maniac before she tears the world apart trying to find Dad.” “Screw you”, Sam spits, a strong twitch in his jaw clearly revealing his discomfort. Lucifer sighs and a pained moan escapes Sam when he drops his head, letting it bounce against the cold granite. “You’re a real selfish bastard, you know that? We could save the world you and me. She’s already taking out whole cities. How long until she’ll step up her game and kill them in thousands just because she can? I thought you were supposed to care about that. Or did you just kinda miss all that was going on because you were too busy playing house with Nick over there?” “O- of course not, but I don’t need you for that.” Lucifer rolls his eyes and wraps his hand around Sam’s throat. “So you’d rather leave your brother to be hurt by her in ways he can’t even talk about, because you’re too chicken shit to allow me in the driver seat again? Wow. I thought at least brotherly love would get you to man up even if you’re okay with seeing the rest of the world burn.” “We’ll find a way without you”, Sam gasps as Lucifer tightens his hand. “Say yes.” And Lucifer lifts his other hand and plunges it into Sam. Suddenly Sam is screaming, taunt as a wire as Lucifer is touching something inside of him. There’s a fond smile on Lucifer’s lips and Nick feels jealously rush through him again. He doesn’t envy the pain, but this familiarity with Lucifer Sam seems to have… Then after a short eternity Lucifer withdraws his hand. “How about now?” His voice is soft now, hand cupping Sam’s face gently and still Sam shakes his head. Nick wishes desperately he could have found a better way. Even though he doesn’t mind seeing Sam in pain, he knows it’s annoying Lucifer that he has to get his hands dirty again. Nick should have prevented this from ever happening. Lucifer leans back, sighs and then shrugs. “We’ll maybe I’ll just have to find another way to remind you of your place. All that torture really reminds me of that nice time we had as roommates. You didn’t have a problem begging me then. Plus, we can’t have Nick here be the last one to touch you in that way, now can we?” Lucifer’s hand, recently retrieved from Sam’s chest, is now traveling down to his zipper. “Plus, Cas here had sex once. Once. In all his millennia. Can you believe it? He’s got those stunning blue eyes and he gets laid a single time? And from what he said, she tried to kill him after… Outch. Talk about traumatic first times. How about we take care of both of those problems real quick? You know what you have to say to make it end.” “Please”, Sam whimpers, voice raw from all the screaming he just did. “Stop.” “Wrong answer.” Lucifer pops the buttons of Sam’s jeans at the same time as someone clears his throat behind Nick. Nick whirls around and a small man is standing behind him. He’s dressed kinda sloppy, like a bum, but his haircut is much too nice for him to actually live on the streets. Nick hasn’t heard a car arrive. Where did he come from? “Who are… Dad?” Lucifer stumbles away from Sam as he stares at the bearded guy. Dad? Like God Dad? The Almighty? Nick can barely hold back a laugh, but there is something in the firm set of the man’s jaws that Nick can’t help but melt against the wall to get away from. It’s terrifying and Nick can feel his mouth run dry. “Lucifer… What are you doing to Sam?” Suddenly Lucifer switches in tone to a voice Nick had never heard before. It’s whiny and petulant and it sounds exactly like a child throwing a temper tantrum. “Oh, so you’re back to scold me. That’s so cool, Dad, really. Auntie Amara is tearing apart the planet trying to find you, thousands of people are dying with your name the last thing on their lips, and you come back to try and prevent me from finding a way to stop her.” “Calm down.” God snaps his fingers and the bindings fall from Sam and Nick who had been slowly inching away is suddenly unable to lift his feet from the ground. “I’m sure we can talk about this. I want Amara back in lock up too.” Neither of them seem to notice that Sam has gotten up, holding the knife that Nick used to slit Dave’s throat. After throwing a glance at God and Lucifer, he finally moves over to where Nick is still stuck, feet fixed to the ground. Nick feels terror run through his body, but he’s unable to move a muscle to prevent what he knows is coming. He can’t even scream. “Oh right, I’m supposed to believe that? Anyway, I changed my mind. I think Amara is right. You can’t handle that we had different plans for this world than you did and so you lock us away instead of talking to us. Well, I’m Team Amara now. Go Amara!” Then Sam is in front of Nick and the blade is in Nick’s stomach and slices upwards and the last thing he hears is God sighing. “We can talk about this at the Bunker. It’s too dangerous out here.” Then with a snap Sam, Lucifer and God disappear, just as Nick is crumbling to the ground. Of all the places to die, Nick thinks, it has to be another damned warehouse. Then everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading this far. I hope you enjoyed it. Again thank you very much for anybody who helped get this story to where it is now.


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